Intelligent support for exploratory data analysis)?

Exploratory data analysis (EDA) is as much a matter of strategy as of selecting specific statistical operations. We have developed a knowledge-based planning system, called AIDE, to help users with EDA. AIDE strikes a balance between conventional statistical packages, which need guidance for every step in the exploration, and autonomous systems, which leave the user entirely out of the decision-making process. AIDE's processing is based on artificial intelligence planning techniques, which give us a useful means of representing some types of statistical strategy. In this article we describe the design of AIDE and its behavior in exploring a small, complex data set.