Quantitative Results Concerning the Utility of Explanation-Based Learning
Steven Minton · The MIT Press eBooks · 1995
Although previous research has demonstrated that EBL is a viable approach for acquiring search control knowledge, in practice the control knowledge learned via EBL may not be useful. To be useful, the cumulative benefits of applying the knowledge must outweigh the cumulative costs of testing whether the knowledge is applicable. Unlike most previous EBL systems, the PRODIGY/EBL system evaluates the costs and benefits of the control knowledge it learns. The system produces useful control knowledge by actively searching for good explanations — explanations that can be profitably employed to control problem solving. This paper summarizes a set of experiments measuring the effectiveness of PRODIGY's EBL method (and its components) in several different domains.