Enhancing the Scientific Process with Artificial Intelligence: Forest Science Applications

Forestry, as a science, is a process for inves- tigating nature. It consists of repeatedly cycling through a number of steps, including iden- tifying knowledge gaps, creat- ing knowledge to fill them, and organizing, evaluating, and delivering this knowledge. Much of this effort is directed toward creating abstract mod- els of natural phenomena. The cognitive techniques of AI, with their emphasis on knowledge and thinking, can help scien- tists create, manipulate, and evaluate these models. The steps of the scientific process can be enhanced with five cog- nitive techniques from AI: neural networks, machine learning, advisory systems, knowledge management, and qualitative simulation. For each technique, we identify the steps of the scientific process to which it can be applied, pro- vide background for the tech- nique, and identify current or potential applications in for-