From: ted.dunning@gmail.com   
      
   Note the tag-line on the very first page of kscape's web-site:   
      
       KnowledgeScape? advanced process control software integrates   
   fuzzy logic, neural   
       networks, genetic algorithms, statistical process control   
   techniques and client server   
       architecture to provide an easy to use, on line, real time, global   
   optimization solution to   
       the process control industry.   
      
   Notice how little credit the rules-based heritage gets.  This is pretty   
   ubiquitous in my experience; the rules part of it all doesn't get you   
   very far at all, but you have to have it around for the regulatory or   
   business logic parts where non-compliance is just not allowed.   
      
   Another interesting example of this was the recommendation engine that   
   I created for Musicmatch (now Yahoo! Music).  The first use of the   
   system was to link web pages and recommend music.  This worked well   
   with raw statistical AI as the output.  The next use, however, was to   
   program radio stations.  The statistical relatedness measures could   
   produce nice listenable radio stations after you tweaked them a bit by   
   putting in some ad hoc measures to encourage variety, but there was no   
   way that they would meet the requirements of the compulsory licenses   
   under the DMCA.   
      
   Thus, we hacked on a generic sort of rule engine that augmented the   
   statistical scoring with large penalties to prevent the random search   
   from violating the law.   
      
   The general principle is that rules alone will get you compliance with   
   some nasty little details, but the bits that can reasonably be called   
   "expertise" are best captured by other means.   
      
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