Computer-aided decision support comes in many forms from individual decision support systems and geographic information systems to artificial intelligence systems.

Individual decision support systems (DSSs) help you analyze a set of numeric criteria to help you decide on the best course of action. What-if and statistical analyses are examples.

A geographic information system is an analysis tool for spatial (or map) data. It graphically represents information linked by distance.

Artificial intelligence systems include expert systems, neural networks, genetic algorithms, and intelligent agents.

An expert system solves well-defined problems that require a prescriptive (what to do?) or a diagnostic (what's wrong?) approach.

A neural network categorizes information, learning what belongs where after seeing lots of examples.

A genetic algorithm is used for problems that have an almost infinite number of solutions and you want the best one.

An intelligent agent either finds information for you, or predicts or reports on an event based on its monitoring capabilities.

Here are some sites where you can find more information

• Decision Support Systems Resources
• DSS: GIS Solutions for Business
• University of Berkeley: AI on the Web
• AI Magazine
• MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab
• AI Depot
• IEEE Intelligent Systems
• The Alan Turing Home Page
• Lynn Andrea Stein papers on Thinking Machines
• A Commonsense Approach to Predictive Text Entry - MIT Media Lab
• The Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing
• Stephen Downes's Guide to the Logical Fallacies