e main results have been obtained: (1) The properties of neurons allow their use as address decoders for a generalized random-access memory; (2) distributing the storage of an item in a set of locations makes very large address spaces (2 1000) practical; and (3) structures similar to those suggested by the theory are found in the cerrebellum. ------------------------------ Date: 11 May 1984 07:08:26-EDT From: Mark.Fox@CMU-RI-ISL1 Subject: IEEE AI Conf. Call for Papers [Forwarded from the SRI bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] CALL FOR PAPERS IEEE Workshop on Principles of Knowledge-Based Systems Sheraton Denver Tex, Denver, Colorado, 3 - 4 December 1984 Purpose: The purpose of this conference is to focus attention on the principle theories and methods of artificial intelligence which have played an important role in the construction of expert and knowledge-based systems. The workshop will provide a forum for researchers in expert and knowledge-based systems to discuss the concepts which underly their systems. Topics include: - Knowledge Acquisition. * manual elicitation. * machine learning. - Knowledge Representation. - Causal modeling. - The Role of Planning in Expert Reasoning - Knowledge Utilization. * rule-based reasoning * theories of evidence * focus of attention. - Explanation. - Validation. * measures. * user acceptance. Please send eight copies of a 1000-2000 word double-space, typed, summary of the proposed paper to: Mark S. Fox Robotics Institute Carnegie-Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 All submissions will be read by the program committee: - Richard Duda, Syntelligence - Mark Fox, Carnegie-Mellon University - John McDermott, Carnegie-Mellon University - Tom Mitchell, Rutgers University - John Roach, Virginia Polytechnical Institute - Reid Smith, Schlumberger Corp. - Mark Stefik, Xerox Parc - Donald Waterman, Rand Corp. Summaries are to focus primarily on new principles, but each principle should be illustrated by its use in an knowledge-based system. It is important to include specific findings or results, and specific comparisons with relevant previous work. The committee will consider the appropriateness, clarity, originality, significance and overall quality of each summary. June 7, 1984 is the deadline for the submission of summaries. Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by July 23, 1984. The accepted papers must be typed on special forms and received by the program chairman at the above address by September 3, 1984. Authors of accepted papers will be expected to sign a copyright release form. Proceedings will be distributed at the workshop and will be subsequently available for purchase from IEEE. Selected full papers will be considered (along with papers from the IEEE Conference on AI and Applications) for a special issue of IEEE PAMI on knowledge-based systems to be published in Sept. 1985. The deadline for submission of full papers is 16 December 1984. General Chairman John Roach Dept. of Computer Science Virginia Polytechnic Institute Blacksburg, VA Program Co-Chairmen Mark S. Fox Tom Mitchell Robotics Institute Dept. of Computer Science Carnegie-Mellon Univ. Rutgers University Pittsburgh, PA New Brunswick, NJ Registration Chairman Local Arrangements Chairman Daniel Chester David Morgenthaler Dept. of Computer Science Martin Marietta Corp. University of Delaware Denver, Colorado Newark, Delaware ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** 20-May-84 22:38:33-PDT,12278;000000000000 Mail-From: LAWS created at 20-May-84 22:35:38 Date: Sun 20 May 1984 22:30-PDT From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #59 To: AIList@SRI-AI AIList Digest Sunday, 20 May 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 59 Today's Topics: Metaphysics - Perception, Recognition, Essence, and Identity ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 May 84 23:33:31-PDT (Tue) From: decvax!ittvax!wxlvax!rlw @ Ucb-Vax Subject: A topic for discussion, phil/ai persons. Article-I.D.: wxlvax.277 Here is a thought which a friend and I have been kicking around for a while (the friend is a professor of philosophy at Penn): It seems that it is IMPOSSIBLE to ever build a computer that can truly perceive as a human being does, unless we radically change our ideas about how perception is carried out. The reason for this is that we humans have very little difficulty identifying objects as the same across time, even when all the features of that object change (including temporal and spatial ones). Computers, on the other hand, are being built to identify objects by feature-sets. But no set of features is ever enough to assure cross-time identification of objects. I accept that this idea may be completely wrong. As I said, it's just something that we have been batting around. Now I would like to solicit opinions of others. All ideas will be considered. All references to literature will be appreciated. Feel free to reply by mail or on the net. Just be aware that I don't log on very often, so if I don't answer for a while, I'm not snubbing you. --Alan Wexelblat (for himself and Izchak Miller) (currently appearing at: ...decvax!ittvax!wlxvax!rlw Please put "For Alan" in all mail headers.) ------------------------------ Date: 15 May 84 14:49:41-PDT (Tue) From: ihnp4!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!norm @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: A topic for discussion, phil/ai persons. Article-I.D.: ariel.630 The computer needs to be able to distinguish between "metaphysically identical" and "essentially the same". This distinction is at the root of an old (2500 years?) Greek ship problem: Regarding Greeks ship problem: When a worn board is replaced by a new board, the ship is changed, but it is the same ship. The difference leaves the ship essentially the same but not identically the same. If all the boards of a ship are replaced one by one until the ship is entirely redone with new boards, it is still the same ship (essentially). Now, if all the old boards that had been removed were put together again in their original configuration so as to duplicate the new-board ship, would the new old-board ship be iden- tically or essentially the same as the original old-board ship? Assume nailless construction techniques were used thruout, and assume all boards always fit perfectly the same way every time. We now have two ships that are essentially the same as the original ship, but, I maintain, neither ship is identical to the original ship. The original ship's identity was not preserved, although its identity was left sufficiently unchanged so as to preserve the ship's essence. The ship put together with the previously-removed old boards is not identically the same as the original old-board ship either, no matter how carefully it is put together. It too is only essentially the same as the original ship. A colleague suggested that 'essence' in this case was contextual, and I tend to agree with him. Actually, even if the Greeks left the original ship alone, the ship's identity would change from one instant to the next. Even while remaining essentially the same, the fact that the ship exists in the context of (and in relation to) a changing universe is enough to vary the ship's identity from moment to mo- ment. The constant changes in the ship's characteristics are admittedly very subtle, and do not change the essential capacity/functionality/identity of the ship. Minute changes in a ships identity have 'essentially' no impact. Only a change sufficiently large (such as a small hole in the hull) have an essential impact. "Essence" has historically been considered metaphysical. In her "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" (see your local bookstore) Ayn Rand identified essence as epistemological rather than metaphysical. The implications of this identification are profound, and more than I want to get into in this article. Philosopher Leonard Peikoff's article "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy", in the back of the newer editions of Rand's Intro to Obj Epist, shows how crucial the distinction between essence-as-metaphysical and essence-as-epistemological really is. Read Rand's book and see why the computer would have to make the same distinc- tion. That distinction, however, has to be made on the CONCEPTUAL level. I think Rand's discussion of concept-formation will probably convince you that it will be quite some time before man-made machinery is up to that... Norm Andrews, AT+T Information Systems (201)834-3685 vax135!ariel!norm ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 84 7:10:40-PDT (Wed) From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rochester!rocksvax!sunybcs!gloria!rosen @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: A topic for discussion, phil/ai persons. Article-I.D.: gloria.176 Just a few quick comments, 1) The author seems to use perceive as visual perception. It can not be a prerequisite for intelligence due to all the counter examples in the human race. Not every human has sight, so we should be able to get intelligence from various types of inputs. 2) Since humans CAN do it is the evidence that OTHER systems can do it. 3) The major assumption is that the only way a computer can identify objects is by having static "feature-sets" that are from the object alone, without having additional information, but why have that restriction? First, all features don't change at once, your grandmother doesn't all- of-a-sudden have the features of a desk. Second, the processor can/must change with the enviornment as well as the object in question. Third, the context plays a very important role in the recognition of of an object. Functionality of the object is cruical. Remindings from previous interactions with that object, and so on. The point is that clearly a static list of what features objects must have and what features are optional is not enough. Yet there is no reason to believe that this is the only way computers can represent objects. The points here come from many sources, and have their origin from such people as Marvin Minsky and Roger Schank among others. There is a lot of literature out there. ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 84 9:50:24-PDT (Wed) From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rochester!ritcv!ccieng5!ccieng2!bwm @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Essence Article-I.D.: ccieng2.179 I don't think ANYONE is looking to build a computer that can understand phiolosophy. If I can build something that acts the same as an IQ-80 person, I would be happy. This involves a surprising amount of work, (like vision, language, etc.) but could certainly be confused by two 'identical' ships as could I. Just because A human can do something does not imply that our immediate AI goals should include it. Rather, first lets worry about things ALL humans can do. Brad Miller ...[cbrma, rlgvax, ritcv]!ccieng5!ccieng2!bwm ------------------------------ Date: 17 May 84 7:04:41-PDT (Thu) From: ihnp4!houxm!hocda!hou3c!burl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!ecsvax!emigh @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: the Greek Ship problem Article-I.D.: ecsvax.2511 This reminds me of the story of Lincoln's axe (sorry, I've forgotten the source). A farmer was showing a visitor Lincoln's axe: Visitor: Are you sure that's Lincoln's axe Farmer: It's Lincoln's axe. Of course I've had to replace the handle three times and the head once, but it's Lincoln's axe alright. Adds another level of reality to the Greek Ship Problem. Ted H. Emigh Genetics and Statistics, North Carolina State U, Raleigh NC USENET: {akgua decvax duke ihnp4 unc}!mcnc!ecsvax!emigh ARPA: ecsvax!emigh@Mcnc or decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!emigh@BERKELEY ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 84 15:20:19-PDT (Wed) From: ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!seismo!ro chester!rocksvax!sunybcs!gloria!colonel @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: the Greek Ship problem Article-I.D.: gloria.178 This is a good example of the principle that it depends on who's doing the perceiving. To a barnacle, it's a whole new ship. Col. G. L. Sicherman ...seismo!rochester!rocksvax!sunybcs!gloria!colonel ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 84 15:17:06-PDT (Wed) From: harpo!seismo!rochester!rocksvax!sunybcs!gloria!colonel @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: Can computers perceive Article-I.D.: gloria.177 If by "perception" you imply "recognition", then of course computers cannot perceive as we can. You can recognize only what is meaningful to you, and that probably won't be meaningful to a computer. Col. G. L. Sicherman ...seismo!rochester!rocksvax!sunybcs!gloria!colonel ------------------------------ Date: 16 May 84 10:57:00-PDT (Wed) From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!marcel @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: A topic for discussion, phil/ai pers - (nf) Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.32300026 The problem is one of identification. When we see one object matching a description of another object we know about, we often assume that the object we're seeing IS the object we know about -- especially when we expect the description to be definite [1]. This is known as Leibniz's law of the indiscernability of identicals. That's found its way into the definitions of set theory [2]: two entities are "equal" iff every property of one is also a property of the other. Wittgenstein [3] objected that this did not allow for replication, ie the fact that we can distinguish two indistinguishable objects when they are placed next to each other (identity "solo numero"). So, if we don't like to make assumptions, either no two objects are ever the same object, or else we have to follow Aristotle and say that every object has some property setting it apart from all others. That's known as Essentialism, and is hotly disputed [4]. The choices until now have been: breakdown of identification, essentialism, or assumption. The latter is the most functional, but not nice if you're after epistemic certainty. Still, I see no insurmountable problems with making computers do the same as ourselves: assume identity until given evidence to the contrary. That we can't convince ourselves of that method's epistemic soundness does nothing to its effectiveness. All one needs is a formal logic or set theory (open sentences, such as predicates, are descriptions) with a definite description operator [2,5]. Of course, that makes the logic non-monotonic, since a definite description becomes meaningless when two objects match it. In other words, a closed-world assumption is also involved, and the theory must go beyond first- order logic. That's a technical problem, not necessarily an unsolvable one [6]. [1] see the chapter on SCHOLAR in Bobrow's "Representation and Understanding"; note the "uniqueness assumption". [2] Introduced by Whitehead & Russell in their "Principia Mathematica". [3] Wittgenstein's "Tractatus". [4] WVO Quine, "From a logical point of view". [5] WVO Quine, "Mathematical Logic". [6] Doyle's Truth Maintenance System (Artif. Intel. 12) attacks the non- monotonicity problem fairly well, though without a sound theoretical basis. See also McDermott's attempt at formalization (Artif. Intel. 13 and JACM 29 (Jan '82)). Marcel Schoppers U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign uiucdcs!marcel ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** 20-May-84 22:58:34-PDT,18508;000000000000 Mail-From: LAWS created at 20-May-84 22:56:07 Date: Sun 20 May 1984 22:43-PDT From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #60 To: AIList@SRI-AI AIList Digest Monday, 21 May 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 60 Today's Topics: AI Literature - Artificial Intelligence Abstracts, Survey - Summary on AI for Business, AI Tools - LISP on PCs & Boyer-Moore Prover on VAXen and SUNs, Games - Core War Software, AI Tools - Display-Oriented LISP Editors ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun 20 May 84 14:10:16-EDT From: MDC.WAYNE%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Artificial Intelligence Abstracts Does anyone else on this list wish, as I do, that there existed a publication entitled ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ABSTRACTS? The field of artificial intelligence is probably the supreme interdisciplinary sphere of activity in the world, and its vital concerns extend across the spectrum of computer science, philosophy, psychology, biology, mathematics, literary theory, linguistics, statistics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, etc. I wonder if one of the major member publishers of the NFAIS (National Federation of Abstracting & Indexing Services) could be convinced to undertake the publication of a monthly reference serial which would reprint from the following abstracting services those abstracts which bear most pertinently on the concerns of AI research: Biological Abstracts / Computer & Control Abstracts / Computer & Information Systems Abstracts Journal / Current Index to Journals in Education / Dissertation Abstracts International / Electrical & Electronics Abstracts / Electronics & Communications Abstracts Journal / Engineering Index / Government Reports Announcements and Index / Informatics Abstracts / Information Science Abstracts / International Abstracts in Operations Research / Language and Language Behavior Abstracts / Library & Information Science Abstracts / Mathematical Reviews / Philosopher's Index / PROMT / Psychological Abstracts / Resources in Education / (This is by no means a comprehensive list of relevant reference publications.) Would other people on the list find an abstracting service dedicated to AI useful? Perhaps an initial step in developing such a project would be to arrive at a consensus regarding what structure of research fronts/subject headings appropriately defines the field of AI. --Wayne McGuire ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 May 84 15:29:35 pdt From: syming%B.CC@Berkeley Subject: Summary on AI for Business This is the summary of the responses to my request about "AI for Business" one month ago on AIList Digest. Three organizations are working on this area. They are Syntelligence, SRI, and Arthur D. Little, Inc.. Syntelligence's objective is to bring intelligent computer systems for business. Currently the major work is in finance area. The person to contact is: Peter Hart, President, 800 Oak Grove Ave, Suite 201, Menlo Park, CA 94025. (415) 325-9339, SRI has a sub-organization called Financial Expert System Program headed by Sandra Cook, (415) 859-5478. A prototype system for a financial application has been constructed. Arthur D. Little are developing AI-based MRP, financial planning, strategic planning and marketing system. However, I do not have much information yet. The person to contact with is Tom Martin. The Director of AI at Arthur D. Little, Karl M. Wiig, gave an interesting talk on "Will Artificial Intelligence Provide The Rebirth of Operations Research?" at TIMS/ORSA Joint National Meeting in San Francisco on May 16. In his talk, a few projects in ADL are mentioned. If interested, write to 35/48 Acorn Park, Cambridge, MA 01240. Gerhard Friedrich of DEC also gave a talk about expert systems on TIMS/ORSA meeting on Tuesday. He mentioned XSEL for sales, XCON for engineering, ISA, IMACS and IBUS for manufacturing and XSITE for customer services. XCON is successor of R1, which is well known. XSEL was published in Machine Intelligence Vol.10. However, I do not know the references for the rest. If you know, please inform me. The interests on AI in Business community is just started. TIMS is probably the first business professional society who will form a interest group on AI. If interested, please write to W. W. Abendroth, P.O. Box 641, Berwyn, PA 19312. The people who have responsed to my request and shown interests are: --------------------------------------------------- SAL@COLUMBIA-20.ARPA DB@MIT-XX.ARPA Henning.ES@Xerox.ARPA brand%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA NEWLIN%upenn.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa shliu%ucbernie@Berkeley.ARPA klein%ucbmerlin@Berkeley.ARPA david%ucbmedea@Berkeley.ARPA nigel%ucbernie@Berkeley.ARPA norman%ucbernie@Berkeley.ARPA meafar%B.CC@Berkeley.ARPA maslev%B.CC@Berkeley.ARPA edfri%B.CC@Berkeley.ARPA ------------------------------------------------------ Please inform me if I made any mistake on above statements. Keep in touch. syming hwang, syming%B.CC@Berkeley.ARPA, (415) 642-2070, 350 Barrows Hall, School of Business Administration, U.C. Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 May 84 10:25 EST From: Kurt Godden Subject: LISP machines question To my knowledge, the least expensive PC that runs LISP is the Atari. Sometime during the past year I read a review in Creative Computing of an Interlisp subset that runs on the Atari family. The reviewer was Kenneth Litkowski and his overall impression of the product was favorable. -Kurt Godden General Motors Research Labs ------------------------------ Date: 14-May-84 23:07:56-PDT From: jbn@FORD-WDL1.ARPA Subject: Boyer-Moore prover on VAXen and SUNs [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] For all theorem proving fans, the Boyer-Moore Theorem Prover has now been ported to VAXen and SUNs running 4.2BSD Unix. Boyer and Moore ported it from TOPS-20 to the Symbolics 3600; I ported it from the 3600 to the VAX 11/780, and it worked on the SUN the first time. Vaughn Pratt has a copy. Performance on a SUN 2 is 57% of a VAX 11/780; this is quite impressive for a micro. Now when a Mac comes out with some real memory... Nagle (@SCORE) ------------------------------ Date: Sunday, 20 May 1984 23:23:30 EDT From: Michael.Mauldin@cmu-cs-cad.arpa Subject: Core War [The Scientific American article referred to below is an entertaining description of software entities that crawl or hop through an address space trying to destroy other such entities and to protect themselves against similar depredations. Very simple entities are easy to protect against or to destroy, but are difficult to find. Complex entities (liveware?) have to be able to repair themselves more quickly than primitive entities can eat away at them. This leads to such oddities as a redundant organism that switches its consciousness between bodies after verifying that the next body has not yet been corrupted. -- KIL] If anybody is interested in the May Scientific American's Computer Recreations article, you may also be interested in getting a copy of the CMU version of the Redcode assembler and Mars interpreter. I have written a battle program which has some interesting implications for the game. The program 'mortar' uses the Fibonacci sequence to generate a pseudo-random series of attacks. The program spends 40% of its time shooting at other programs, and finally kills itself after 12,183 cycles. Before that time it writes to 53% of memory and is guaranteed to hit any stationary program larger than 10 instructions. Since the attacks are random, a program which relocates itself has no reason to hope that the new location is any safer than the old one. Some very simplistic mathematical analysis indicates that while Dwarf should kill Mortar 60% of the time (this has been verified empirically), no non-repairing program of size 10 or larger can beat Mortar. Furthermore, no self-repairing program of size 141 can beat Mortar. I believe that this last result can be tightened significantly, but I haven't looked at it too long yet. I haven't written this up, but I might be cajoled into doing so if many people are interested. I would very much like to see some others veryify/correct these results. ======================================================================== Access information: ======================================================================== The following Unix programs are available: mars - A redcode simulator, written by Michael Mauldin redcode - A redcode assembler, written by Paul Milazzo Battle programs available: dwarf, gemini, imp, mortar, statue. Userid "ftpguest" with password "cmunix" on the "CMU-CS-G" VAX has access to the Mars source. The following files are available: mlm/rgm/marsfile ; Single file (shell script) mlm/rgm/srcmars/* ; Source directory Users who cannot use FTP to snarf copies should send mail requesting that the source be mailed to them. ======================================================================== Michael Mauldin (Fuzzy) Department of Computer Science Carnegie-Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (413) 578-3065, mauldin@cmu-cs-a. ------------------------------ Date: 11 May 84 7:00:35-PDT (Fri) From: hplabs!hao!seismo!cmcl2!lanl-a!cib @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: wanted: display-oriented interlisp structure editor Article-I.D.: lanl-a.7072 Our system is ISI-Interlisp on a UNIX VAX, and I normally use emacs to edit Interlisp code. emacs can be called with the LISPUSERS/TEXTEDIT program. It needs a minor patch to be able to handle files with extensions. I can give further details by mail if you are interested. ------------------------------ Date: 8 May 84 13:32:00-PDT (Tue) From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!ashwin @ Ucb-Vax Subject: Re: wanted: display-oriented interlisp s - (nf) Article-I.D.: uicsl.15500035 We use the LED editor which runs in InterLis