Oomputers: Expert systems: Limited but powerful: Using a collection of facts, rules of thumb, and methods of applying those rules and making inferences, a new type of computer system is emerging

In most areas of artificial intelligence - that branch of computer science that attempts to have machines emulate intelligent behavior - programs fall far short of the competence of humans or even animals. Computer systems designed to see images, hear sounds, and recognize speech are still in fairly early stages of development. However, in one area of AI - that of reasoning from knowledge in a limited domain - computer programs can not only approach human performance, but in some cases they can exceed it.