The sharing and computer exercising of human Know-How

It is, indeed, an honour for a complete outsider to medicine to have been asked to give the Mayneord Lecture at Radiology '85. It is also a privilege to have had the opportunity of meeting Professor and Mrs Mayneord and of hearing their kind reactions to a technology so recent that its entire history spans but a tiny fraction of their own contribution to medicine.

The technology in question is concerned with an instrumentation for Know-How, which is regarded as empirical human knowledge, or the compiled experience of human specialists in their domain of skill. In general this extraordinary and ancient resource, so familiar to everyone, has been lightly treated by Science and the Professions. Know-How is rarely put in written form apart from occasional fragments. Yet it is said to be the key determinant to the overwhelming majority of human decisions. However, this last is but one of many human decisions. However, this last is but one of many assertions on the subject which, although confidently held, is not sustained by proof. Most of the evidence about empirical knowledge is, itself, empirical.

The development of this particular technology has not been guided by cognitive science. It was originally inspired by the work of Ed Feigenbaum, who is the father of modern Expert Systems (Feigenbaum et al, 1971), but the first applications were built by British companies.