Autonomous evolutionary information systems
Jingde Cheng · Wuhan University Journal of Natural Sciences · 2001
Traditional information systems are passive, i. e., data or knowledge is created, retrieved, modified, updated, and deleted only in response to operations issued by users or application programs, and the systems only can execute queries or transactions explicitly submitted by users or application programs but have no ability to do something actively by themselves. Unlike a traditional information system serving just as a storehouse of data or knowledge and working passively according to queries or transactions explicitly issued by users and application programs, an autonomous evolutionary information system serves as an autonomous and evolutionary partner of its users that discovers new knowledge from its database or knowledge-base autonomously, cooperates with its users in solving problems actively by providing the users with advices, and has a certain mechanism to improve its own state of “knowing” and ability of “working”. This paper seminally defines what is an autonomous evolutionary information system, explain why autonomous evolutionary information systems are needed, and presents some new issues, fundamental considerations, and research directions in design and development of autonomous evolutionary information systems.