An Expert Systems Journey—Red Pepper and Blue Martini

Abstract

This article traces my journey building expert systems and bringing them into the business world. I started out learning about rule-based systems at Carnegie Mellon in the 1970s and implementing constraint-based systems at NASA and MITRE in the 1980s. I built upon this early experience to co-found Red Pepper Software, a company that specialized in planning and scheduling manufacturing tasks. Following Red Peppers success, I founded my second startup, Blue Martini, which used machine learning to enhance e-commerce businesses. Since the arrival of Big Data in the 21st century, Ive watched the industry transform, and was a part of the data-driven marketing revolution at Rocket Fuel. Throughout my career, my work has centered on expert systems and how they can be used to help people. This is the story of my journey, and the evolution of AI in business