Using Justification Patterns to Advise Novice UNIX Users

摘要

Novice unix users have many incorrect beliefsabout unix commands. An intelligent advisory system for unix should provide explanatory responses that correct thesemistaken beliefs. To do so, the system must be able to understand how the useris justifying these beliefs, and it must be ableto provide justifications for its own beliefs.These tasks not only require knowledgeabout specific unix-related plans butalso abstract knowledge about how beliefs can be justified.This paper shows how this knowledge can be representedand sketches how it can be used to form justificationsfor advisor beliefs and to understand justifications given for user beliefs.Knowledge about belief justification is captured byjustification patterns,domain-independent knowledge structuresthat are similar to the abstract knowledge structures usedto understand the point behind a story.These justification patterns allow the advisor to understand andformulate novel belief justifications, giving the advisorthe ability to recognize and respond to novel misconceptions.