From comsat@vtcs1 Fri Feb 21 03:36:09 1986 Date: Fri, 21 Feb 86 03:35:55 est From: comsat@vtcs1.VT To: fox@vtopus (MILLER,FRANCE,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: R Received: from sri-ai.arpa by CSNET-RELAY.ARPA id a013526; 20 Feb 86 14:51 EST Date: Thu 20 Feb 1986 10:40-PST Reply-to: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V4 #31 To: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 21 Feb 86 07:11 EST AIList Digest Thursday, 20 Feb 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 31 Today's Topics: Seminars - Classical Conditioning and Contingency (SU) & Learnability and the Vapnik-Chervonenkis Dimension (IBM-SJ) & Hierarchical Reasoning, Simulation (UPenn) & The Architecture of a Rational Agent (Edinburgh) & Planning for Robotic Assembly Lines (USC) & Distributed Problem Solving (USC) & Adaptive Planning (MIT) & Deductive and Relational Knowledge Bases (CCA), Conference - Symbolics National Users Group Meeting ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 19 Feb 86 18:34:28 pst From: gluck@SU-PSYCH (Mark Gluck) Subject: Seminar - Classical Conditioning and Contingency (SU) The topic of this week's learning seminar will be on associative learning in animals. We will examine classical conditioning, one of the simplest and best studied forms of induction. The readings are: Rescorla & Wagner (1972): Reviews the animal learning data and proposes a simple linear model of associative learning which predicts than animals will induce relative contingencies between stimuli. The algorithm is formally equivalent to the Widrow-Hoff predictor in adaptive systems and is a special case of the delta rule used by the Rumelhart et al. back-propogation algorithm. The other two papers are two "Cognitive Science" models for classical conditioning. The first, presented in the Holland et al book, is a rule-based production system model of classical conditioning. The second, by Sutton and Barto, is a connectionist/network model for classical conditioning. The seminar is in Building 360; Room 364 (near the geology corner). On Thursday from 1:15-3pm. ------------------------------ Date: 19 Feb 86 14:53:44 PST From: CALENDAR@IBM-SJ.ARPA Subject: Seminar - Learnability and the Vapnik-Chervonenkis Dimension (IBM-SJ) [Excerpted from the IBM Calendar by Laws@SRI-AI.] IBM Almaden Research Center 650 Harry Road San Jose, CA 95120-6099 Computer LEARNABILITY AND THE VAPNIK-CHERVONENKIS DIMENSION Science D. Haussler, Department of Mathematics and Seminar Computer Science, University of Denver Fri., Feb. 28 The current emphasis on knowledge-based software has 10: 30 A.M. created a broader interest in algorithms that learn B1-413 knowledge structures or concepts from positive and negative examples. Using the learning model recently proposed by Valiant, we have attempted to determine which classes of concepts have efficient (i.e., polynomial time) learning algorithms. As noticed earlier by Pearl and by Devroye and Wagner, a simple combinatorial property of concept classes, the Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension, plays an important role in learning and pattern recognition. We clarify the relationship between this property and Valiant's theory of learnability. Our results lead to the design of efficient learning algorithms that employ a variant of Occam's Razor. Illustrations are given for certain classes of conjunctive concepts and for concepts that are defined by various types of regions in feature space. The work reported was done jointly with Anselm Blumer, Andrzej Ehrenfeucht and Manfred Warmuth of the Universities of Denver, Colorado and California at Santa Cruz, respectively. Host: B. Simons [A BATS announcement said that the seminar would be at 11:00. - KIL] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Feb 86 00:56 EST From: Tim Finin Subject: Seminar - Hierarchical Reasoning, Simulation (UPenn) Forwarded From: Paul Fishwick on Sun 16 Feb 1986 at 12:54 HIERARCHICAL REASONING: SIMULATING COMPLEX PROCESSES OVER MULTIPLE LEVELS OF ABSTRACTION Paul A. Fishwick University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. Defense This talk describes a method for simulating processes over multiple levels of abstraction. There has been recent work with respect to data, object, and problem-solving abstraction, however, abstraction in simulation has not been adequately explored. We define a process as a hierarchy of distinct production rule sets that interface to each other so that abstraction levels may be bridged where desired. In this way, the process may be studied at abstraction levels that are appropriate for the specific task: notions of qualitative and quantitative reasoning are integrated to form a complete process description. The advantages to such a description are increased control, computational efficiency and selective reporting of simulation results. Within the framework of hierarchical reasoning, we will concentrate on presenting the primary concept of process abstraction. A Common Lisp implementation of the hierarchical reasoning theory called HIRES is presented. HIRES allows the user to reason in a hierarchical fashion by relating certain facets of the simulation to levels of abstraction specified in terms of actions, objects, reports, and time. The user is free to reason about a process over multiple levels by weaving through the levels either manually or via automatically controlled specifications. Capabilities exist in HIRES to facilitate the creation of graph-based abstraction levels. For instance, the analyst can create continuous system models (CSMP), petri net models, scripts, or generic graph models that define the process model at a given level. We present a four-level elevator system and a two-level "dining philosophers" simulation. The dining philosophers simulation includes a 3-D animation of human body models. Time: Wednesday, February 26, 3pm Place: Moore School, Room 554 Committee: Dr. Norman Badler (Adviser) Dr. Timothy Finin (Chairman) Dr. Insup Lee Dr. Richard Paul ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Feb 86 17:55:35 GMT From: Gideon Sahar Subject: Seminar - The Architecture of a Rational Agent (Edinburgh) EDINBURGH AI SEMINARS Date: Wednesday, 19th February l9986 Time: 2.00 p.m. Place: Department of Artificial Intelligence Seminar Room Forrest Hill EDINBURGH. Dr. Robert C. Moore, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge (visiting from SRI International) will give a seminar entitled - "The Architecture of a Rational Agent". The ultimate goal of artificial intelligence is to build complete, autonomous, artificial rational agents. Most research in AI focuses on one or another component of such an agent: the vision sybsystem, reasoning subsystem, language subsystem, etc. Recently, however, some attention has begun to be paid to the over-all architecture in which these subsystems are combined. The first half of this talk will discuss how concern for the architecture of rational agents is motivated by the need to treat language as a form of rational action, and how this view of language provides a formal framework for treating phenomena that have been argued to be beyond the scope of formal analysis. In the second half of the talk, we will compare the three component belief/desire/intention model of rational agency typically used in AI to the two component model cannot satisfactorily account for cooperation among rational agents, proving a theorem to the effect that there are situations in which there is no strategy for a group of two-component agents that is rational by the normal standards of decision theory. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Feb 1986 13:50-EST From: gasser@usc-cse.arpa Subject: Seminar - Planning for Robotic Assembly Lines (USC) USC DPS GROUP MEETING Wednesday, 2/26/86 3:00 - 5:00 PM Seaver Science Bldg. 319 Dong Xia (Ph.D. Student, USC) will speak on "An Approach To Planning and Scheduling for Robotic Assembly Lines" While extensive studies have been devoted to general robot problem solving and planning techniques in artifical world in recent years, the progress towards their practical applications in robotic manufacturing floor has severely prohibiited by the lack of sound understanding of the assembly process and an adequate method to deal with real time uncertainties. In this talk, we are going to address two of the most fundamental and interrelated problems, namely task planning and temporal action scheduling. We study these problems in the context of multiple cooperative robots with assumed perceptual capabilities which work in a highly shared and dynamic mechanical environment in a coordinated fashion for a common or different goal(s). In this presentation, a general system architecture and a hybrid knowledge representation scheme for a class of assembly lines is proposed and some important design concepts and problems of robot-based intelligent assembly lines are identified and discussed. Finally a particular prototype system, called Miniassembler, is given, which exhibits our concepts and methods to cope with temporal uncertainty. Questions: Dr. Les Gasser, USC (213) 743-7794 or Dong Xia (XIA@USC-CSE.ARPA). ------------------------------ Date: 18 Feb 1986 15:34-PST From: gasser@usc-cse.arpa Subject: Seminar - Distributed Problem Solving (USC) USC DPS GROUP MEETING Wednesday, 2/19/86 3:00 - 4:00 PM Seaver 319 Tom Hinke will speak on "Distributed Problem Solving and Architectural Design". The talk will cover some preliminary ideas about the application of distributed problem solving techniques to the domain of computer aided architectural design. The talk will include a brief overview of caad work to date, a concept of how DPS could be applied to this area, and a brief discussion of some of the anticipated problems in applying DPS to design. The talk is based on very preliminary work in the area and should be viewed as a forum to generate some initial comments and direction for the bulk of the research which lies ahead. Questions: Dr. Les Gasser, (213) 743-7794, or Tom Hinke: HINKE@USC-CSE.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1986 17:08 EST From: David Chapman Subject: Seminar - Adaptive Planning (MIT) [Forwarded from the MIT bboard by SASW@MIT-MC.] Wednesday, February 26 3:00pm Room: NE43- 8th floor Playroom The Artificial Intelligence Lab Seminar "Adaptive Planning" Richard Alterman UC Berkeley Consider the case where a planner intends to transfer airplanes. A common-sense approach to the problem of transferring airplanes would be to try to re-use an old existing plan: exit first airplane via arrival gate, determine departure gate, walk to the departure gate, and board second airplane via departure gate. In a small airport this would work just fine. But in a larger airport, say Kennedy Airport where there is more than one terminal, if the arrival and departure gates were in different terminals, the plan would have to be modified (i.e. the planner would have to take a shuttle between terminals). The problem of adaptive planning is to refit old plans to novel circumstances. In the case of the example above, an adaptive planner would refit the old plan for transferring airplanes to the novel circumstances at the Kennedy Airport. The importance of adaptive planning is that it adds a dimension of flexibility to the common-sense planner. Key elements in the theory of adaptive planning are its treatment of background knowledge and the introduction of a notion of planning by situation matching. The talk will motivate and discuss four kinds of background knowledge. It will describe a number of kinds of situation difference that can occur between an old plan and the new planning situation. It will discuss situation matching techniques that are based on the interaction of the planner's current circumstances and its background knowledge. An important theme throughout this discussion will be the control of access to knowledge. ------------------------------ Date: Tue 18 Feb 86 15:40:17-EST From: Sunil Sarin Subject: Seminars - Deductive and Relational Knowledge Bases (CCA) [Forwarded from the MIT bboard by SASW@MIT-MC.] CCA Colloquium Series DATE: February 20, 1986-- Thursday TIME: 10:00-11:00 a.m. PLACE: 4th floor large conference room, Four Cambridge Center TITLE: Deductive Databases and a Relational Knowledge Base A Survey of Work at ICOT, Japan SPEAKERS: Haruo Yokota and Masaki Murakami (Institute for New Generation Computer Technology (ICOT--Japan) ) CCA (Computer Corporation of America) is located at Four Cambridge Center, which is on Broadway, behind Legal Seafood. Tell the security desk you are visiting CCA and they will send you up to CCA on the 5th floor. Tell CCA's receptionist to call Barbara Wong who will show you where the seminar is. (If you can't remember that, simply say you're here for the colloquium.) Abstracts of works to be covered: 1. Deductive Database System based on Unit Resolution by Haruo Yokota, Ko Sakai, Hidenori Itoh This paper presents a methodology for constructing a deductive database system consisting of an intensional processor and a relational database management system. A setting evaluation is introduced. The intensional processor derives a setting from the intensional database and a given goal and sends the setting and the relationship between setting elements to the management system. The management system performs a unit resolution with setting using relational operations for the extensional databases. An extended least fixed point operation is introduced to terminate all types of recursive queries. 2. A Model and an Architecture for a Relational Knowledge Base by Hauro Yokota, Hidenori Itoh A relational knowledge base model and an architecture which manipulates the model are presented. An item stored in the relational knowledge base is a term, and it is retrieved by unification operation between the terms. The relational knowledge base architecture we propose consists of a number of unification engines, several disk systems, a control processor, and a multiport page-memory. The system has a knowledge compiler to support a variety of knowledge representations. 3. Formal Semantics of a Relational Knowledge Base by Masaki Murakami, Hauro Yokota, Hidenori Itoh A mathematical foundations for formal semantics of term relations [Yokota et al. 85] is presented. A term relation is a basic data structure of a relational knowledge base. It is an enhanced version of relational model in a database theory. It may include syntactically complex structures such as terms or literals containing variables as items of relations. The items are retrieved with operations called retrieval-by-unification. We introduce as a semantic domain of n-ary-term relations n_T_RELATIONS and define a partial order on them. We characterize retrieval-by-unification as operations on n_T_RELATIONS with monotone functions and greatest lower bounds. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Feb 86 13:50:19 pst From: grover@aids-unix (Mark Grover) Subject: Conference - Symbolics National Users Group Meeting [Submitted to AILIST because: 1) it is an initial announcement. Followup will take place via the address provided. 2) Symbolics computers are a major tool of AI researchers. 3) The majority of work on Symbolics computers is related to AI. 4) Users are widespread: well over 100 sites and 1500 machines.] Are you getting bored with TV:MENU-CHOOSE? Do you know your FOSS from your CSE? Are you ready for Release 7 and Common Lisp? No matter what your answers, you are invited to the Second Annual SYMBOLICS NATIONAL USERS GROUP MEETING (SNUG86) Georgetown University Campus Washington, DC June 2-6, 1986 (organized by the Capital Area SLUG) with... Speakers Poster Sessions War Stories Panels Discussions Tutorials Debates Wizards BOFs The SLUG National Board has approved plans from the Capital Area SLUG to hold a five-day National Symposium (SNUG86). This year's Symposium will consist of three days of meetings, preceeded by two days of special Symbolics Educational Services Tutorials at a small additional cost per session. Planning is well underway to build on the experience of last year's National SLUG Symposium in San Francisco. This year we hope for an even more exciting gathering at the beautiful Georgetown University campus on the Potomac River to discuss, debate and learn the best in Lisp Machine techniques. This year's theme: "Programming in Style on the Symbolics" The goal of this year's Symposium is to make explicit the experience of long-time users in terms of programming style. There are so many ways of achieving a particular function, but which are the most efficient, elegant and consistent? This Symposium is a means to share such important information, where common needs and individual problems can be addressed. Registration costs (separate from tutorials) will be considerably less than comparable meetings. Inexpensive campus housing will be available. A detailed announcement will be forthcoming. RESPONSE DEADLINE IS MARCH 28, 1986 It is essential that the Symposium planning committee hear from you in order to gauge interest. To receive future announcements, you must fill in a response form BY MARCH 28 to the mailing address below. We also also invite program suggestions. Please address program-related correspondence to ATTN: Programs, or via ARPAnet mail to the Program Chair, Mark Grover (Advanced Decision Systems), at GROVER@AIDS-UNIX.ARPA (or Grover@AIDS-DC.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM). This address is for technical program session proposals only! Questions regarding registration, facilities and exhibits should be directed to address and phone below. Planned Activities Monday and Tuesday: Tutorials taught by Symbolics personnel to include Introduction to Lisp Machine Programming, Site Maintenance, Common Lisp and advanced topics. Tuesday evening: Third Party Vendor Hospitality suites. Wednesday: Keynote presentations, concentrating on Release 7 and SLUG activities such as the national library. Thursday and Friday: program sessions to include Windows and Processes; Flavors; Of Mice and Menus; Large Scale Data Management; Networking; File Storage for Lisp Objects; Group Programming Etiquette; Security; and Personalizing Your Environment. Many other topics are under consideration. Please make additional suggestions of session proposals on the form below. Poster sessions will be held in parallel with the program sessions. A poster session allows a user to display charts and code on a fixed display in shared quarters while interested attendees are free to move about, listen to and discuss these informal talks. Further, there will be free time for Birds of a Feather (BOF) gatherings. We hope to provide some Lisp Machine time for these sessions. This is a USER-oriented meeting. The informal availability of Symbolics "wizards" was a significant attraction of last year's Symposium which will be repeated. Conference Location Located near the Potomac River and Rock Creek Park, the Georgetown area of Washington DC is well-known for its many shops and restaurants. Georgetown University provides excellent meeting facilities and inexpensive accommodations. The many monuments and museums of Washington are within short rides via bus or metro. SNUG86 MAILING LIST (Mail this form to the address below. No ARPA mail please). Ms. Annmarie Pittman SNUG86 655 15th Street NW #300 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 639-4228 First Name: Last Name: Title: Organization: Address: City: State: Zip Code: Telephone: _____ Please add me to the mailing list. _____ I plan to attend SNUG86. _____ I would be interested in attending Symbolics Education Services one-day tutorials on the subjects(s): _____ I would like to propose sessions on the subject(s): _____ I would be interested in giving a poster session on the topic: _____ My company is interested in exhibiting at the conference. Please send exhibit materials. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vtcs1 Fri Feb 21 08:41:08 1986 Date: Fri, 21 Feb 86 08:41:02 est From: comsat@vtcs1.VT To: fox@vtopus (MILLER,FRANCE,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: R Received: from sri-ai.arpa by CSNET-RELAY.ARPA id a001045; 21 Feb 86 2:12 EST Date: Thu 20 Feb 1986 22:49-PST Reply-to: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V4 #32 To: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 21 Feb 86 07:23 EST AIList Digest Friday, 21 Feb 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 32 Today's Topics: Queries - AI Teaching/Tutoring Package & Expert Systems and Software Engineering & Micro-PROLOG & 68k Unix LISP & NL Dialogue, Literature - LISP Texts & Logo & MRS, Methodology - Taxonomizing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 12 Feb 86 15:37:28 EST From: munnari!goanna.oz!ysy@seismo.CSS.GOV (yoke shim YAP) Subject: AI Teaching/Tutoring Package Recently, I heard that a teaching / tutoring package has been written using Artificial Intelligence techniques. It seems that this piece of information appeared in an article. Has anyone read or heard anything about this article? I would like to get hold of this article and if possible, contact the author of this package. Y. S. YAP Dept. of Computing Faculty of Applied Science RMIT ...or munnari!goanna.oz!ysy@SEISMO.ARPA GPO BOX 2476V Melbourne VIC. 3001 AUSTRALIA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Feb 86 14:18:11 -0100 From: Jorun Eggen Subject: Expert Systems and Software Engineering Hello out there! Can anyone give me references to work carried out in order to see what theory, methodologies and tools from Software Engineering can do to assist the process of building expert systems? Or to put it another way: Is Knowledge Acquisition today at the same level as Software Engineering was 20 years ago? If the answer is yes, what can we learn from Software Engineering to help us to provide reinventing the wheel and instead consentrate on the new unsolved problems? References to articles, reports, people, books etc. are welcome. Thanks a lot, and be aware that my net-address "uninett" is spelled with double t. Jorun Eggen RUNIT/SINTEF N-7034 Trondheim-NTH NORWAY ------------------------------ Date: 13 Feb 86 16:50:56 GMT From: amdcad!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!deba@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Deba Patnaik) Subject: micro-PROLOG info wanted I am thinking of purchasing "micro-PROLOG". I would like to know Price, comments and who distributes it. Are there any other PROLOG ( Interepreters or Compilers ) ? deba@maryland.arpa deba%umdc.bitnet@wiscvm.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Feb 86 16:00:16 -0500 From: johnson Subject: seeking lisp for 68k unix world Computer Logic, Inc., is seeking a license for an efficient lisp running on 680XX-based Unix systems. We are looking for an implementation of lisp that meets the following criteria: . source code is available . runs on 68k-based UNIX machines . allows loading of modules written in C, or other system-level language . small and fast (even at the expense of advanced features) . one-time license available, or nominal run-time environment royalties . floating-point and integer arithmetic (arbitrary precision is NOT required) . lisp "impurities" such as: setq, rplaca, rplacd If you know of any lisp that meets these criteria, please pass us a pointer to its author. If YOU own an implementation of lisp, and would like to SELL it to us, please send us: . a description of your lisp, including: . a list of the primitive functions . the hardware/software requirements for a run-time system . the hardware/software requirements for building your system from source code . some indication of the hard and soft limits of your system (w/r/t maximum number of objects, number of symbols, number of numbers, etc.) . a brief description of any special features that you feel would expedite software development in your lisp, {editors, compilers, structured-objects, environment-dumps} . how many times can you perform (T1 2000) without garbage collection on a machine with 1048576 bytes of available memory? (please extrapolate or interpolate from tests run on whatever machine is available to you; be sure tell us the way that you arrived at your figure) when the garbage collection does occur, how long does it take? . how long does (T2 20) take? . if your lisp has an iterative construct (do, loop, or prog with goto) how long does it take to perform (T3 5000)? Feel free to modify these functions syntactically to allow them to run in your version of lisp, but please include the modified versions along with your results. (ps: these functions will run unmodified in muLISP-85) Most unix systems provide a means to measure the elapsed time allocated to a given process (try "man time" on your system). Please give your times in terms of this quantity. If no such facility is available, be sure to indicate the conditions under which you ran the benchmark. (DEFUN T1 (LAMBDA (N) (COND ((> N 1) (LIST N (T1 (- N 1)))) (T (LIST 1))))) (DEFUN T2 (LAMBDA (N) (COND ((< N 2) 1) (T (+ (T2 (- N 1)) (T2 (- N 2))))))) (DEFUN T3 (LAMBDA (N) (LOOP (IF (= N 0) (RETURN)) (SETQ N (- N 1))))) Please send all description responses to: Apperson H. Johnson Computer Logic Inc. 2700 Philadelphia Pike, P.O. Box 9640 Wilmington, De. 19809 {johnson@udel will read any pointers} ------------------------------ Date: 13 Feb 86 11:34:13 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!cstvax!hwcs!aimmi!george@SEISMO (George Weir) Subject: Dialogue help please needed ? I am currently am working on Dialogue Management Systems, with Natural Language Understanding in it. Despite weeks of effort (including Saturdays), I find my system is still unable to handle it with several forms of natural expression. Please help to cure my depressions : if you have a system working which manages dialogue in of course natural language (complete with efficient interpreter/complier), and it's able to cope with all known syntactic forms, as well as most semantics, please send me a copy, or post it to this news group. I prefer a system which works in English but Norwegian would do it. thanks you, Ingy P.S. Doesn't matter if your documentation isn't up to IEEE standards, if they are close to it. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Feb 86 11:12:03 pst From: sdcsvax!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!pamp@ucbvax.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: request for LISP source code In article <8602031844.AA28255@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> you write: > I am teaching an AI course for the continuing education program at >St. Mary's College in Southern Maryland. This is my first time teaching >LISP and I would appreciate access to the source code for "project- >sized" LISP programs or any other teaching aids or material. We are >using the 2nd edition of both Winston's AI and Winston&Horne's LISP. >I hate to ask for help, but we are pretty far from mainstream AI >down here and my students and I all have full time jobs so any help we >can get from the professional AI community would be greatly >appreciated by all of us. > > Bob Woodruff > Veda@paxrv-nes.arpa I'd like to make a recommendation in additional texts. We have found Winston&Horn to be a bit irritating to work with, especially since the problems and answers are either too vaguely stated or filled with bugs. Two other books that we have found to handle LISP more adaquately are: Touretzky,David S.,1984,Lisp - A gentle introduction to symbolic computation;Harper & Row , New York, 384p. -- A good intro text for those who have no experience in symbolic processing (generally, most conventional programmers). Gives a good covering of the basic principles behind LISP. Wilensky,Robert,1984,LISPcraft,W.W.Norton & Company,New York 385p. --Covers programming techniques and LISP philosophy over different dialects quite well. One thing that has helped with the training around the AI center here is to take the time to give a little of the history of LISP, where and why the different dialects have developed, and a little of history of hardware currently in use. A short time spent on relations to PROLOG couldn't hurt. (A good short article of LISP and PROLOG history is: Tello,Ernie,April 16,1985, The Languages of AI research, PC Magazine,v.4,no.8,p.173-189.) Hope this helps. P.M.Pincha-Wagener ------------------------------ Date: 14 Feb 86 22:11:11 GMT From: decvax!cwruecmp!leon@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Leon Sterling) Subject: Re: Pointers to Logo? The AI department at the University of Edinburgh used to teach its undergraduate courses in AI using Logo several years ago. The lecture notes appear as a book called Artificial Intelligence, published (I think) by Edinburgh University Press, the editor is Alan Bundy. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Feb 86 07:57:07 PST From: Curtis L. Goodhart Subject: MRS There was a recent question about what MRS stands for. According to "The Compleat Guide to MRS" by Stuart Russell Esq., Stanford University Knowledge Systems Laboratory Report No. KSL-85-12, page 2, "MRS stands for Meta-level Representation System". In the preface on page i MRS is described briefly as "a logic programming system with extensive meta-level facilities. As such it can be used to impement virtually all kinds of artificial intelligence applications in a wide variety of architectures." Curt Goodhart (goodhart@nosc ... on the arpanet)) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Feb 86 10:13 EST From: Seth Steinberg Subject: Re: Taxonomizing in AI and Dumplings Building a taxonomy is a means of predicting what will be found. Anyone who has read any of Steve Gould's columns in Natural History will be quite familiar with this problem. When Linnaeus devised the modern biological taxonomy of the plant kingdom he was criticized for his heavy emphasis on the sex lives of the flowers. He was considered crude and salacious. He worked in a hurry to preempt any competetive scheme and avoid a split in the field but his choice was prophetic and his emphasis on sex was vindicated by Darwin's later work which argued that sex was both essential to selection (no sex, no children) AND to the origin and maintenance of the species. Of course for every "good" taxonomy there are dozens of losers. Take the old earth, air, fire and water taxonomy with its metaphoric power. It still works; look in the Science Fiction and Fantasy section of your local bookstore. Of course chemists and physicists use Medeleev's taxonomy of the elements which has much better predictive power. There is nothing wrong with building these structures as long as they can be used to predict or explain something. Breaking up LISP programs into families based on the number of parentheses has only limited predictive power. Building a taxonomy is no more or less than constructing a theory and building a theory is useful because it gives people an idea of what to look for. A sterile taxonomy is not particularly useful. That is the positive side. A theory also tells people what to ignore and biology is full of overlooked clues, all carefully noted and explained, waiting to be illuminated by a new theory. I think the debate going on now is typical in any young field. If we had a theory we could use it to march rapidly along its path, much like an Interstate highway. Even if we find it doesn't get us where we want to go, we had a smooth pleasant ride. Witness classical electrodynamics, its collapse and the advent of quantum theory. The justifiable fear is that we will race past our exit and exclude or ignore crucial signs which indicate the correct path. Personally I think that it is time to set up a few theories of AI so that we can have the fun of knocking them down. As one might expect most theories at this stage are either useless and lack predictive power (except possibly for predicting tenure) or are so weak and full of holes that you can drive a truck full of LISP machines through them. When people start developing theories with real predictive power that are really hard to knock down then we can relax a bit. Seth Steinberg P.S. This month's Scientific American had an article on quantum effects in biological reactions at low temperatures and the author argues that conformational resonances (which determine reactivities) are driven by quantum tunneling! Maybe there ARE carcinogenic vibrations! ------------------------------ Date: 12 Feb 86 17:02:35 GMT From: hplabs!utah-cs!shebs@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Stanley Shebs) Subject: Re: taxonomizing in AI: useless, harmful In article <3600038@iuvax.UUCP> marek@iuvax.UUCP writes: >... Taxonomizing is a debatable art of empirical >science, usually justified when a scientist finds itself overwhelmed with >gobs and gobs of identifiable specimens, e.g. entymology. But AI is not >overwhelmed by gobs and gobs of tangible singulars; it is a constructive >endeavor that puts up putatative mechanisms to be replaced by others. The >kinds of learning Michalski so effortlessly plucks out of the thin air are not >as incontrovertibly real and graspable as instances of dead bugs. Now I'm confused! Were you criticizing Michalski et al's taxonomy of learning techniques in pp. 7-13 of "Machine Learning", or the "conceptual clustering" work that he has done? I think both are valid - the first is basically a reader's guide to help sort out the strengths and limitations of dozens of different lines of research. I certainly doubt (and hope) no one takes that sort of thing as gospel. For those folks not familiar with conceptual clustering, I can characterize it as an outgrowth of statistical clustering methods, but which uses a sort of Occam's razor heuristic to decide what the valid clusters are. That is, conceptual "simplicity" dictates where the clusters lie. As an example, consider a collection of data points which lie on several intersecting lines. If the data points you have come in bunches at certain places along the lines, statistical analysis will fail dramatically; it will see the bunches and miss the lines. Conceptual clustering will find the lines, because they are a better explanation conceptually than are random bunches. (In reality, clustering happens on logical terms in a form of truth table; I don't think they've tried to supplant statisticians yet!) >Please consider whether taxonomizing kinds of learning from the AI perspective >in 1981 is at all analogous to chemists' and biologists' "right to study the >objects whose behavior is ultimately described in terms of physics." If so, >when is the last time you saw a biology/chemistry text titled "Cellular >Resonance" in which 3 authors offered an exhaustive table of carcinogenic >vibrations, offered as a collection of current papers in oncology?... Hmmm, this does sound like a veiled reference to "Machine Learning"! Personally, I prefer a collection of different viewpoints over someone's densely written tome on the ultimate answer to all the problems of AI... >More constructively, I am in the process of developing an abstract machine. >I think that developing abstract machines is more in the line of my work as >an AI worker than postulating arbitrary taxonomies where there's neither need >for them nor raw material. > > -- Marek Lugowski I detect a hint of a suggestion that "abstract machines" are Very Important Work in AI. I am perhaps defensive about taxonomies because part of my own work involves taxonomies of programming languages and implementations, not as an end in itself, but as a route to understanding. And of course it's also Very Important Work... :-) stan shebs ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vtcs1 Sat Feb 22 01:24:50 1986 Date: Sat, 22 Feb 86 01:24:46 est From: comsat@vtcs1.VT To: fox@vtopus (MILLER,FRANCE,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by CSNET-RELAY.ARPA id a007083; 21 Feb 86 14:07 EST Date: Fri 21 Feb 1986 09:29-PST Reply-to: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V4 #33 To: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Sat, 22 Feb 86 01:14 EST AIList Digest Friday, 21 Feb 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 33 Today's Topics: Literature - New CSLI Reports & Indiana U. CS TR #176, Reviews - SI Interactions, 2/86 & Applied Intelligence 12/85, History - Airline Reservation Systems, Machine Learning - Hopfield Networks, Methodology - Dreyfus' Technology Review Article ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed 19 Feb 86 17:20:04-PST From: Emma Pease Subject: New CSLI Reports Report No. CSLI-85-34, ``Applicability of Indexed Grammars to Natural Languages'' by Gerald Gazdar, Report No. CSLI-85-39, ``The Structures of Discourse Structure'' by Barbara Grosz and Candace L. Sidner, and Report No. CSLI-85-44, ``Language, Mind, and Information'' by John Perry, have just been published. These reports may be obtained by writing to Trudy Vizmanos, CSLI, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305 or Trudy@SU-CSLI. ------------------------------ Date: 14 Feb 86 16:12:00 GMT From: ihnp4!inuxc!iubugs!iuvax!marek@ucbvax.berkeley.edu Subject: Indiana U. CS TR #176 Due to conditions of poverty, the Indiana University Computer Department is henceforth unable to supply free copies my technical report (#176) titled "Why Artificial Intelligence Is Necessarily Ad Hoc: One's Thinking/Approach/ Model/Solution Rides on One's Metaphors". The volume of requests has simply outstripped our financial resources. However, a modest bribe of $2.00 will suffice to propagate the item to you. More substantial unrestricted grants from corporate, philanthropic or governmental sources are always welcome. Please make your bribes PAYABLE TO Indiana University Foundation, but do continue to ADDRESS REQUESTS for our TRs TO Nancy Garrett, Computer Science Department, Lindley Hall 101, Bloomington, Indiana 47405. You could let Nancy know in advance that you're sending money for one: nlg@iuvax.uucp or nlg@indiana.csnet. As the saing goes, sorry for the inconvenience but that's the breaks. Several people got the TR for free, but no more. Perhaps it should be noted that any run on IU tech reports will generate a bribe request proportional to the length of the item. TR #176 has 52 pages. -- Marek Lugowski Indiana University Computer Science Bloomington, Indiana 47405 marek@indiana.csnet ------------------------------ Date: WED, 10 JAN 84 17:02:23 CDT From: E1AR0002%SMUVM1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU Subject: Review - SI Interactions, 2/86 Summary of AI Interactions, Volume 1, Number 7, February 1986 Texas Instruments has invested more money in AI research than the Japanese in their Fifth Generation Project. The Computer Systems Laboratory is working to design computers with several different types of processors on the same bus or chip, e. g. array procesors, graphics processors and symbolic processors. They also developing an architectural concept called Odyssey which combines multiple digital signal processing chips on a single NuBus board. At the Purdue University in West Lafayette, they have developed an expert sytem that assists farmers in determining the best way to market their prodcut. It has 180 rules with the prototype done in three months. Discussion of the features of Personal Consultant Plus. It includes frames, meta-rules and mapping functions. Also discusses the use of contexts. Texas Instruments has announced Relational Table Management System, a database system for the Explorer. It interfaces with the Lisp environment. A domain can store any type of object including graphics, pointers, lists, relation names or large amounts of text. It interfaces with Natural Language Menu, a graphics tool kit,PROLOG. Texas Instruments has developed an expert system to assist pilots in the F-16. The Defense Department awarded TI 3 million dollars to develop a similar system for attack helicopters. The F-16 system handles two specific problems, towershaft failure and loss of canopy. Towershaft is the mechanism by which the F-16 jet engine provides power to other aircraft systems. ------------------------------ Date: WED, 10 JAN 84 17:02:23 CDT From: E1AR0002%SMUVM1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU Subject: Review - Applied Intelligence 12/85 Summary of Applied Intelligence, Volume 2 Number 4 December 1985 At the recent Instrumentation Society of America show in Philadelphia, four major vendors announced their intent to offer PICON, Lisp Machine Incorporated's real-time expert system, to their customers. Leeds and Northrup demonstrated the system in conjunction with their MAX 1 process control system. PICON is running at six customer sites. A large chemical processing company is using PICON in control The knowledge engineering was done by a process engineer who developed a 350-frame knowledge base in a period of two months. Oak Ridge International bought PICON for robotics and Lockheed bought it for CAD applications. PICON has been installed at the Texaco chemical plant in Port Arthur where it monitors several processes. It interfaces to a Honeywell TDC-2000 process control system. Pete Thompson is the Manager of Artificial Intelligence at Texaco's Computer and Information Systems Department. Lisp Machine Incorporated also announces the availability of ObjectLisp, a second generation approach to object-oriented programming. It directly invokes local functions within the context of the object and releases the programmer from having to define message-passing structures. ObjectLISP allows both object variables and object functions to be either created or deleted interactively without requiring recompilation. MCC has made its sixth order for Lambda hardware from LMI. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Feb 86 23:47:40 est From: decvax!utzoo!dciem!mmt@ucbvax.berkeley.edu Subject: Airline Reservation Systems > Date: 23-Jan-86 12:52:19-PST > From: jbn at FORD-WDL1 > ... Contrast this with Minksy's recent claims seen here that airline > reservation systems were invented by someone at the MIT AI lab in the > 1960s. > >I decided to take a close look at this contrast. After searching through >the recent archives, the only mention by Minsky of airline reservation >systems that I can find is: > > And I'm pretty sure that the first practical airline reservation was > designed by Danny Bobrow of the BBN AI group around 1966.! > >Now that I have refreshed my memory with what he actually said, I think the >contrast is not quite as unflattering. Given the use of the adjective >``practical'', someone might even be able to make a case that he is right. The case would not be watertight. Air Canada was using a reservation system developed at Ferranti Electric Inc., (a Toronto-based firm not to be confused with Ferranti in UK), running on a redundant computer system called Gemini, from 1961 for about 10 years until it was replaced. It did all the things one associates with computerized reservation systems, and was used by reservation clerks to deal with the public, so I guess you could call it "practical." Incidentally, this system led to the development of what may be the first fully commercial time-sharing computer system (I mean memory-protected, independent multi-user multitasking), the FP-6000, which was first delivered around the end of 1962 or the beginning of 1963. The design for that machine formed the basis of the ICL 1900 series in the UK. It, like the airline reservations system, was a totally Canadian design (if you will forgive the chauvinism). Martin Taylor Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 86 05:32:32 GMT From: sdcsvax!elman@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Jeff Elman) Subject: Re: Hopfield Networks? In article <5413@mordor.UUCP>, ehj@mordor.UUCP (Eric H Jensen) writes: > In article <1960@peora.UUCP> jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) writes: > >In a recent issue (Issue 367) of EE Times, there is an article titled > >"Neural Research Yields Computer that can Learn". This describes a > >simulation of a machine that uses a "Hopfield Network"; from the ... > > I got the impression that this work is just perceptrons revisited. > All this business about threshold logic with weighting functions on > the inputs adjusted by feedback (i.e. the child reading) ... This refers to some work by Terry Sejnowski, in which he uses a method developed by Dave Rumelhart (U.C. San Diego), Geoff Hinton (CMU), and Ron Williams (UCSD) for automatic adjustment of weights on connections between perceptron-like elements. Sejnowski applied the technique to a system which automatically learned text-to-phoneme correspondances and was able to take text input and then drive a synthesizer. The current work being done by Rumelhart and his colleagues certainly builds on the early perceptron work. However, they have managed to overcome one of the basic deficiencies of the perceptron. While perceptron systems have a simple learning procedure, this procedure only worked for simple 2-layer networks, and such networks had limited power (they could not recognize XOR patterns, for instance). More complex multi-layer networks were more powerful, but -- until recently -- there has been no simply way for these systems to automatically learn how to adjust weights on connections between elements. Rumelhart has solved this problem, and has discovered a generalized form of the perceptron convergence procedure which applies to networks of arbitrary depth. He and his colleagues have explored this technique in a number of interesting simulations, and it appears to have a tremendous amount of power. More information is available from Rumelhart (der@ics.ucsd.edu or der@nprdc.arpa), or in a technical report "Learning Internal Representations by Error Propagation" (Rumelhart, Hinton, Williams), available from the Institute for Cognitive Science, U.C. San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093. Jeff Elman Phonetics Lab, UCSD elman@amos.ling.ucsd.edu / ...ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdamos!elman ------------------------------ Date: 13 Feb 86 21:30:45 GMT From: decwrl!glacier!kestrel!ladkin@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Peter Ladkin) Subject: Re: "self-styled philosophers" In article <3189@umcp-cs.UUCP>, mark@umcp-cs.UUCP (Mark Weiser) writes: > A recent posting called the Dreyfus' "self-styled philosophers". This > is unfair, since Hubert Dreyfus is also styled a philosopher by many another > philosopher in the area of phenomenology. Agreed. He is also a professional philosopher, holding a chair at U.C. Berkeley. His criticisms of AI claims are thoroughly thought through, with a rigor that a potential critic of his views would do well to emulate. He has done AI great service by forcing practitioners to be more self-critical. AAAI should award him distinguished membership! His main thesis is that there are certain human qualities and attributes, for example certain emotions, that are just not the kinds of things that are amenable to mechanical mimicry. This general claim seems unexceptional. His examples may not always be the most appropriate for his claims, some of his arguments seem to be incorrect, and, since he isn't a practicing computer scientist, his knowledge of current research is lacking. But it is intellectual sloppiness to deride him without addressing his arguments. There is, however, a political component to the discussion. He believes he is able to show that certain types of research cannot justify the claims they make on the basis of which they are funded. He may be right in some of these cases. This is clearly a sensitive issue, which muddies the intellectual waters. Both sides would do well to separate the issues. Peter Ladkin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Feb 86 03:48:30 PST From: ucdavis!lll-crg!amdcad!amd!hplabs!fortune!redwood!rpw3@ucbvax .berkeley.edu (Rob Warnock) Subject: Re: Technology Review article + | The [Technology Review] article was written by the Dreyfuss brothers, who ... | claim... that people do not learn to ride a bike by being told how to do it, | but by a trial and error method that isn't represented symbolically. + Hmmm... Something for these guys to look at is Seymour Papert's work in teaching such skills as bicycle riding, juggling, etc. by *verbal* and *written* means. That's not to say that some trial-and-error practice is not needed, but that there is a lot more that can be done analytically than is commonly assumed. Papert has spent a lot of time looking at how children learn certain physical skills, and has broken those skills down into basic actions, "subroutines", and so forth. After reading his book "Mindstorms", I picked up three apples and, following the directions in the book, taught myself to juggle (3 things, not 4-"n") with only a few minutes practice. Particularly useful were his warnings of which errors were associated with which levels of the subroutine hierarchy. (Oddly enough, most errors in the overall performance come not from the coordination of the three balls, but from not mastering the most basic skill, throwing- and-catching a single ball. The most serious mistake here is looking at the balls at any points in the trajectory *other* than at the very top.) So... there is at least SOME hint that the difference between "knowledge" and "skills" is not as vast as we normally assume, *if* the "skills" are analyzed properly with a view to learning. Rob Warnock Systems Architecture Consultant UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!dual}!fortune!redwood!rpw3 DDD: (415)572-2607 USPS: 627 26th Ave, San Mateo, CA 94403 ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 86 23:44:45 GMT From: decvax!linus!philabs!dpb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Paul Benjamin) Subject: Re: Re: "self-styled philosophers" > In article <3189@umcp-cs.UUCP>, mark@umcp-cs.UUCP (Mark Weiser) writes: > > A recent posting called the Dreyfus' "self-styled philosophers". This > > is unfair, ... > > Agreed. He is also a professional philosopher, ... Baloney. His views show a total lack of understanding of science, together with an inability to perform useful work relating to science. For example, in his recent article, he recounts an "experiment" he conducted to show that chessplayers do not use reasoning very much, but just play instinctively. This experiment consisted of an International Master playing against a weaker player. The IM was forced to add a sequence of numbers while playing, thus supposedly occupying his reasoning capability. The IM won anyway, thus supposedly showing that chess is not primarily a reasoning venture, or more precisely, that the difference between being a master and just very good is not due to superior reasoning. But wait a minute! How does this qualify as an experiment? Where is the control group? Did he have the IM play a number of players, sometimes having to add, sometimes not, and compare their results? NO. Did he vary the distracting task, in case addition was not demanding enough? NO. In short, this experiment means nothing, since the IM may well have played worse than he would have without having to add, but won anyway. This type of "evidence" is constantly cited by Dreyfus to support his views, but it's meaningless, due to his inability to perform good work. Also, he remarks that he and his brother have both failed to improve to a master level in chess, and somehow uses this to support his views, too! His basic argument is that if reasoning is so important, then he should be able to make master, implying that he is a good reasoner! It obviously has never occurred to him to ask someone who is a master if reasoning is important to him. I am a USCF master, and can guarantee that improving my reasoning capability has raised my rating (over 300 points in the last few years). It seems arrogant for him to reach conclusions about fields in which he is not accomplished. This applies to both chess and AI. Paul Benjamin ------------------------------ Date: 17 Feb 86 15:57:27 GMT From: nike!topaz!harvard!bu-cs!bzs@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Barry Shein) Subject: Re: Re: "self-styled philosophers" >For example, in his recent article, he recounts an "experiment" >he conducted to show that chessplayers do not use reasoning very >much, but just play instinctively. This experiment consisted of >an International Master playing against a weaker player. The IM >was forced to add a sequence of numbers while playing, thus >supposedly occupying his reasoning capability. The IM won anyway I just repeated this experiment and I think he is right. I forced my SUN to add sequences of numbers while playing chess with me and I lost. Here, do it yourself: main() { int i,j; for(;;) for(i=j=0; i < 10000 ; i++) j += i ; } save this in file foo.c, compile with 'cc foo.c' and say: a.out & (runs it in the background) chesstool it slows it down only a tad, barely noticeable, but I still keep losing! AMAZING! my computer is human! -Barry Shein, Boston University ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vtcs1 Mon Feb 24 04:10:13 1986 Date: Mon, 24 Feb 86 04:10:08 est From: comsat@vtcs1.VT To: fox@vtopus (MILLER,FRANCE,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: R Received: from sri-ai.arpa by CSNET-RELAY.ARPA id a020141; 23 Feb 86 19:23 EST Date: Sun 23 Feb 1986 11:28-PST Reply-to: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V4 #34 To: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Mon, 24 Feb 86 03:49 EST AIList Digest Sunday, 23 Feb 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 34 Today's Topics: Seminar - Inferring Domain Plans in Question Answering (SRI), Course - Connectionist Summer Workshop Reminder (CMU), Conference - Expert Database Systems Advance Program ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu 20 Feb 86 18:04:16-PST From: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA Subject: Seminar - Inferring Domain Plans in Question Answering (SRI) INFERRING DOMAIN PLANS IN QUESTION-ANSWERING Martha E. Pollack (POLLACK@SRI-AI) AI Center, SRI International 11:00 AM, MONDAY, February 24 SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 (new conference room) The importance of plan inference (PI) in models of conversation has been widely noted in the computational-linguistics literature, and its incorporation into question-answering systems has enabled a range of cooperative behaviors. The PI process in each of these systems, however, has assumed that the questioner (Q) whose plan is being inferred and the respondent (R) who is drawing the inference have identical beliefs about the actions in the domain. In this talk I will argue that this assumption is too strong, and often results in failure not only of the PI process, but also of the communicative process that PI is meant to support. In particular, it precludes the principled generation of appropriate responses to queries that arise from invalid plans. I will present a model of PI in conversation that distinguishes between the beliefs of the questioner and the beliefs of the respondent. This will rest on an account of plans as mental phenomena: "having a plan" will be analyzed as having a particular configuration of beliefs and intentions. Judgements that a plan is invalid will be associated with particular discrepancies between the beliefs that R ascribes to Q, when R believes Q has some particular plan, and the beliefs R herself holds. An account of different types of plan invalidities will be given, and shown to provide an explanation for certain regularities that are observable in cooperative responses to questions. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Feb 86 20:04 EST From: Dave.Touretzky@A.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: Course - Connectionist Summer Workshop Reminder (CMU) Connectionist Summer Workshop Reminder This is a reminder that the deadline for applying to attend the connectionist summer workshop to be held June 20-29 at Carnegie Mellon is March 1st. Applications are welcomed from graduate students and recent Ph.D.'s and M.D.'s who are actively involved in connectionist research. ---> This is not just a summer school for training new connectionists, as a previous announcement may have implied. We plan to organize small working groups and hold lively discussions with visiting speakers. New research will be presented and people are encouraged to bring their software for demos; we'll supply the machines. To apply, send a copy of your vita and one relevant paper, technical report, or research proposal to: Dr. David Touretzky, Computer Science Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Feb 86 13:15:00 GMT From: sdcsvax!ncr-sd!ncrcae!usceast!kersch@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Larry Kerschberg) Subject: Conference - Expert Database Systems -- Advance Program Conference Advance Program and Registration Forms First International Conference on Expert Database Systems Sheraton Charleston Hotel April 1-4, 1986 Sponsored by: Institute of Information Management, Technology and Policy College of Business Administration University of South Carolina In Cooperation With: American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Association for Computing Machinery -- SIGMOD, SIGART, and SIGPLAN IEEE Computer Society -- Technical Committee on Data Base Engineering Agence de l'Informatique, France Tuesday, April 1, 1986 Tutorial Day 8:30 am - 12:00 pm Morning Parallel Tutorials I IA: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence Instructor: Dr. Elaine Rich, MCC, Austin, Texas Dr. Rich is currently leading a natural language research team at MCC. She is the author of the widely-read book, Artificial Intelligence, as well as numerous technical papers. Course Description: This tutorial will provide an introduction to the important concepts and techniques of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The major topics are: What is an AI technique?; Problem solving as heuristic search; Heuristic search techniques such as hill climbing, best first search, problem decomposition, constraint satisfaction; Knowledge representation and inference including logic-based methods, default reasoning, slot and filler methods and production rules. IB: Database Management Instructor: Professor Michael Stonebraker, UC - Berkeley, California Dr. Stonebraker is a full professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the original implementor of the INGRES system and is a co-founder of Relational Technology, Inc. which markets INGRES to engineering and business users. Course Description: This tutorial will provide an overview of Database Management. The major topics are: Traditional data models and query languages including network, hierarchical, and relational models; Database services such as transaction management, query optimization, protection, views, integrity control; New approaches to data models including semantic data models, logic programming, CAD/CAM data models; Themes of Expert Database Systems such as extended views, active databases, procedural objects, inheritance, and new data types. 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm Afternoon Parallel Tutorials II IIA: Expert Systems -- An Introduction Instructor: Professor Charles Rich, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts Dr. Rich is Principal Research Scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is co-principal investigator of the Programmer's Apprentice Project at MIT. Course Description: This is an introductory tutorial for those who intend to develop or manage the development of new expert systems, as well as those who want to evaluate the potential for using expert systems in their own work. No previous background is assumed. The topics include: Expert systems features including expert-level performance, symbolic and heuristic information, and the separation of Knowledge from Inference; Application areas for expert systems; Programming techniques used for expert system development including rules, frames, logic programming; and the use of incremental prototypes for expert systems development. IIB: Logic Programming and Databases Instructor: Dr. Steve Hardy, Teknowledge, Inc., Palo Alto, California Dr. Hardy is currently Product Manager at Teknowledge. He was the Principal Designer of the M.1 Expert System Shell. Course Description: This tutorial will provide an overview of the important concepts relating to logic programming and databases. The major topics are: Logic and databases; Prolog: A logic language; Prolog: Its practical difficulties; High-level logic languages including shells for Prolog; Current applications; What the future holds. Wednesday, April 2, 1986 8:00-12:00 am Registration 8:45-9:00 am Opening Remarks Chairman: Donald A. Marchand, University of South Carolina, USA 9:00-10:00 am Keynote Address Chairman: Larry Kerschberg, University of South Carolina, USA To be announced Ronald J. Brachman and Hector J. Levesque*, AT&T Bell Labs, USA and University of Toronto*, Canada 10:00-10:30 am Coffee Break 10:30-12:00 am Session 1: Object-Oriented Systems Chairman: Reid Smith, Schlumberger-Doll Research, USA Object Prototypes and Database Samples for Expert Database Systems G.T. Nguyen, IMAG, Universite de Grenoble, France Displaying Database Objects D. Maier, P. Nordquist* and M. Grossman, Oregon Graduate Center and Intel Corp.*, USA A Personal Universal Filing System Based on the Concept-Relation Model H. Fujisawa, A. Hatakeyama and J. Higashino, Hitachi, Ltd., Japan 12:00-1:30 pm Lunch 1:30-3:00 pm Afternoon Parallel Sessions Session 2A: Theory of Knowledge Bases Chairman: Setsuo Ohsuga, University of Tokyo, Japan Control of Processes by Communication over Ports as a Paradigm for Distributed Knowledge-Based System Design A.S. Cromarty, Advanced Information and Decision Systems, USA Representing and Manipulating Knowledge Within "Worlds" H. Kaufmann and A. Grumbach*, C.G.E..-- Laboratoires de Marcoussis and Ecole Superieure d'Electricite*, France Completeness and Consistency in Knowledge Base Systems W. Marek, University of Kentucky, USA Session 2B: Intelligent Database Interfaces Chairman: Bonnie L. Webber, University of Pennsylvania, USA Supporting Goal Queries in Relational Databases A. Motro, University of Southern California, USA Design and Experimentation of IR-NLI: An Intelligent User Interface to Bibliographic Databases G. Brajnik, G. Guida and C. Tasso, Universita di Udine, Italy When does Non-Linear Text Help? D. Shasha, New York University, USA 3:00-3:30 pm Coffee Break 3:30-5:00 pm Panel Session: Are Data Models Dead? Chairman: Michael L. Brodie, Computer Corporation of America, USA 6:30-9:30 pm Great Gatsby Night Thursday, April 3, 1986 8:30-10:00 am Session 4: Knowledge System Architectures Chairman: Michele Missikoff, IASI-CNR, Italy The Do-Loop Considered Harmful in Production System Programming M. van Biema, D.P. Miranker and S.J. Stolfo, Columbia University, USA A Relational Representation for Knowledge Bases R.M. Abarbanel and M.D. Williams, IntelliCorp, USA Interfacing Relational Databases and Prolog Efficiently S. Ceri, G. Gottlob and G. Wiederhold, Stanford University, USA 10:00-10:30 am Coffee Break 10:30-12:00 am Morning Parallel Sessions Session 5A: Deductive Databases Chairman: D. Stott Parker, Jr., UCLA and Silogic, USA Negative Queries in Horn Databases Shamin Naqvi, AT&T Bell Laboratories, USA Safety and Compilation of Non-Recursive Horn Clauses Carlo Zaniolo, MCC, USA Recursive Axioms in Deductive Databases: The Query/Subquery Approach L. Vieille, European Computer-Industry Research Center (ECRC), West Germany Session5B: Reasoning in Expert Database Systems Chairman: James Bezdek, University of South Carolina, USA Evaluation of Recursive Queries Using Join Indices P. Valduriez and H. Boral, MCC, USA An Algebraic Approach to Recursive Inference Y.E. Ioannidis and E. Wong, University of California - Berkeley, USA A Fuzzy Relational Calculus A. Zvieli, Louisiana State University, USA 12:00-1:30 pm Lunch 1:30-3:30 pm Afternoon Parallel Sessions Session 6A: Semantic Query Optimization Chairman: Matthias Jarke, New York University, USA A Knowledge-Based Approach to Query Optimization C.V. Malley and S.B. Zdonik, Brown University, USA Semantic Query Optimization: Additional Constraints and Control Strategies U.S. Chakravarthy, J. Minker and J. Grant*, University of Maryland and Towson State University*, USA Integrity Enforcement on Prolog-based Deductive Databases H. Decker, ECRC, West Germany Session 6B: Knowledge-Based Modeling and Design Chairman: Edgar H. Sibley, George Mason University, USA Modeling Linguistic User Interfaces M. Pilote, Toronto, Canada How Abstraction Can Reduce Ambiguity in Explanation Problems S. Letovsky, Yale University, USA A Framework for Design/Redesign Experts A.L. Furtado, M.A. Casanova* and L. Tucherman*, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro and IBM do Brasil*, Brazil Flexible Interfaces and the Support of Physical Database Design Reasoning M. Prietula and G. Dickson*,Dartmouth College and University of Minnesota*, USA 3:30-4:00 pm Coffee Break 4:00-5:30 pm 7. Panel Session: Inference in Expert Database Systems Chairman: Herve Gallaire, ECRC, West Germany 6:00-9:00 pm Red, White and Bluegrass Night Friday, April 4, 1986 8:00-10:00 am Session 8: Knowledge Management Chairman: Alain Pirotte, Philips Research Lab, Belgium An Analysis of Rule Indexing Implementations in Data Base Systems M. Stonebraker, T. Sellis and E. Hanson, UC-Berkeley, USA Querying a Rule Base L. Cholvy and R. Demolombe, Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches de Toulouse, France Updating Propositional Formulas A. Weber, Universitat Karlsruhe, West Germany Invited Lecture: Beyond the Knowledge Level Mark. S. Fox, Carnegie-Mellon University, USA 10:00-10:30 am Coffee Break 10:30-12:00 am 9. Panel Session: Open Issues in Expert Database Systems Chairman: Robert Balzer, USC- Information Sciences Institute, USA 12:00-12:15 pm Closing Ceremony Chairman: Donald A. Marchand, University of South Carolina, USA All Payments must be made in US Currency. Make checks payable to the Institute of Information Managment, Technology and Policy and mail the form to Ms. Libby Shropshier, Conference Treasurer Institute of IMTP College of Business Administration University of South Carolina Columbia, SC, 29208 Telephone: (803) 777-5766 [The original included conference and hotel registration forms. -- KIL] ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vtcs1 Mon Feb 24 04:05:58 1986 Date: Mon, 24 Feb 86 04:05:54 est From: comsat@vtcs1.VT To: fox@vtopus (MILLER,FRANCE,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: R Received: from sri-ai.arpa by CSNET-RELAY.ARPA id a021403; 23 Feb 86 22:25 EST Date: Sun 23 Feb 1986 11:39-PST Reply-to: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V4 #35 To: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Mon, 24 Feb 86 03:52 EST AIList Digest Sunday, 23 Feb 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 35 Today's Topics: Games - Computer Othello & Computer Chess, Automata - Self-Replication and Artificial Life, Methodology - A Thought on Thinking, Humor - AI Koans & The Naive Dog Physics Manifesto ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Feb 86 21:34:13 EST From: Kai-Fu.Lee@SPEECH2.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: Computer Othello (Bill) [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] In the recent North American Computer Othello Championship Tournament, our department's entry, BILL, placed second in a field of 11. The final standings were: 1. Aldaron (C. Heath) 7.5 - 0.5 2. Bill (K. Lee & S. Mahajan) 7 - 1 3. Brand (A. Kierulf) 5 - 3 3. Fort Now (?) 5 - 3 Bill's only loss was to Aldaron, the defending champion, as well as the program that should have beaten Iago in 1981. However, Bill's loss was due to the choice of color in the game with Aldaron. In an unofficial rematch with Aldaron, Bill won with the colors reversed. Furthermore, Bill soundly defeated the program that tied Aldaron. With the many improvements that we have in mind and the enthusiastic participation this year, we expect an exciting championship next year. If anyone is interested in more information about Bill, this tournament, or the game transcripts, please send mail to kfl@speech2 or mahajan@h. ------------------------------ Date: 17 February 1986 1954-EST From: Hans Berliner@A.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: computer chess (final) [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] The Eastern Team championship is essentially over. Hitech won and drew today, producing a final score of 5.5 - .5. It played remarkably well. Outside of falling into an opening trap due to a deficiency in its book, and being outplayed a little in game four but recovering when the opponent made an error, its play is above criticism. It played mainly against expert level players, a class that is almost extinct in Pittsburgh, and beat every one of them. It drew its final game with a strong master rated nearly equal (2291) to Hitech. It had black in 4 games, and white in two; a noticable disadvantage. Mike Valvo who directs the ACM tournaments played on board one for the team and finished with a score of 4.5 to 1.5. Hitech played on board two, and Belle played on board three. Belle apparently has had a hardware overhaul, and played much better than it had recently. However, on a comparison basis, Belle scored 5- 1, losing in the last round, and it had 4 whites and two blacks and played against slightly weaker opponents than Hitech. The fourth board human on the team was a catastrophe, scoring less than 50%. The crucial match was in the fifth round and ended in a draw with both computers winning and both humans losing, thus making the match a draw and ruining our chances of winning the title (the team had won all its previous matches). In the final round, there are still some unfinished games, but the team should do no worse than draw, giving a team record of 5 -1 (two drawn matches). Overall, it is safe to say that on our team the species @u[robot sapiens] far outperformed the species @u[homo sapiens]. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Feb 86 10:20:20 EST From: Chris_Langton%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: Artificial Life I read in the ailist a series of comments on the size of self-reproducing systems (ARPA.AIList, Volume 3, Issue 71, 06/01/85 - starting with the message from zim@mitre of 05/24/85 ) I have published an article wherein I exhibit a self-reproducing configuration embedded in a cellular automaton which occupies a mere 10x15 cell rectangle. The construction is based on a modification of one of Codd's components (see Codd: Cellular Automata) in his simplification of von Neumann's self-reproducing machine. My article is published in: Physica 10D (1984) North Holland, pp 135-144, entitled 'self-reproduction in cellular automata'. Basicly, this configuration consists of a looped pathway with a construction arm extending out from one corner. Signals cycling around the loop cause the construction arm to be extended by a certain amount and then cause a 90 degree corner to be built. as this sequence is executed 4 times (due to the same signal sequence cycling around the loop 4 times), the four sides of an offspring loop are built. When the extended construction arm runs into itself, the resulting collision causes the two loops to detach from each other and also triggers the construction of a new construction arm on each loop. The new arm on the parent loop is located at the next corner 'downstream' (in the sense of signal flow) from the original site. Thus, the parent loop will go on to build another loop in a new direction. Meanwhile, when the offspring was formed, a copy of the signal sequence that serves as the description was trapped inside it when the two detached from one another, thus it, too, goes on to build offspring. The result is a growing colony of loops that expands out into the array, consisting of a reproductive outer fringe surrounding a growing 'dead' core, in the manner of a coral reef or the cross section of a tree. Details are to be found in the article. Although this construction is not capable of universal construction or computation, it clearly reproduces itself in a non-trivial manner, unlike the reproduction under modulo addition rules, of which Fredkin's reproducing system is an example. I am also working on cellular automaton simulations of insect colonies and artificial biochemistries. I have another article coming out in the proceedings of the conference on 'Evolution, Games, & Learning' held at the Los Alamos National Labs last May. It is entitled 'studying artificial life with cellular automata'. There will be a video tape available soon from Aerial Press in Santa Cruz which illustrates the self-reproducing loops as well as the artificial insect colony simulations and other examples of `artificial life'. I would be very interested in hearing from anybody who is working on anything which might fall under the general heading 'artificial life'. I would also like to try to get together a workshop, with computer support, where people who have been working in this area could get together and have a 'jam session' of sorts, and see each other's stuff. Any proceedings from such a workshop would benefit greatly from having a video published along with it. If anybody is interested in helping to organize such a workshop, send me a message. I can be reached at: CGL%UMICH-MTS@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA USPS: Christopher G. Langton / EECS Dept. / University of Michigan / Ann Arbor MI 48109 MA-BELL (now divorced from PA-ATT) 313-763-6491 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 86 15:09:11 GMT From: gcj%qmc-ori.uucp@cs.ucl.ac.uk Subject: A Thought From Vol 4 # 26:- "The idea is to get kids to be more thoughtful about thinking by getting them to try to think about how animals think, and by taking the results of these comtemplations and actually building animal-like creatures that work." Alan Kay. From Vol 3 # ??:- Date: Tue, 12 Mar 85 "Just as man had to study birds, and was able to derive the underlying mechanism of flight, and then adapt it to the tools and materials at hand, man must currently study the only animal that thinks in order to derive the underlying principles there also." Frank Ritter I am struck by two (or more?) very different uses of the word "think"! Gordon Joly ARPA: gcj%qmc-ori@ucl-cs.arpa UUCP: ...mcvax!ukc!kcl-cs!qmc-ori!gcj ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Feb 86 00:08:02 PST From: "Douglas J. Trainor" Subject: a cuppla ai koans from One day SIMON was going to the cafeteria when he met WEIZENBAUM, who said: "I have a problem for you to solve." SIMON replied, "tell me more about your problem," and walked on. =================================================================== from How long would a simulation of its own lifetime survive? What is the rate of change of all metaphors for the viability of that rate? =================================================================== someone resent me Gabriel's old '83 koan : A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser. Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnesty, the Undergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly pressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Feb 86 14:38 PST From: Cottrell@NPRDC Subject: The Naive Dog Physics Manifesto From: Leslie Kaelbling From: MikeDixon.pa@Xerox.COM From: haynes@decwrl.DEC.COM (Charles Haynes) SEMINAR From PDP to NDP through LFG: The Naive Dog Physics Manifesto Garrison W. Cottrell Department of Dog Science Condominium Community College of Southern California The Naive Physics Manifesto (Hayes, 1978) was a seminal paper in extending the theory of knowledge representation to everyday phenomena. The goal of the present work is to extend this approach to Dog Physics, using the connectionist (or PDP) framework to encode our everyday, commonsense knowledge about dogs in a neural network[1]. However, following Hayes, the goal is not a working computer program. That is in the province of so-called performance theories of Dog Physics (see, for example, my 1984 Modelling the Intentional Behavior of the Dog). Such efforts are bound to fail, since they must correspond to empirical data, which is always changing. Rather, we will first try to design a competence theory of dog physics[2], and, as with Hayes and Chomsky, the strategy is to continually refine that, without ever getting to the performance theory. The approach taken here is to develop a syntactic theory of dog actions which is constrained by Dog Physics. Using a variant of Bresnan's Lexical-Functional Grammar, our representation will be an context-free action grammar, with associated s-structures (situation structures). The s-structures are defined in terms of Situation Dogmatics[3], and are a partial specification of the situation of the dog during that action. Here is a sample grammar which generates strings of action predicates corresponding to dog days[4], (nonterminals are capitalized): Day -> Action Day | Sleep Action -> Sleep | Eat | Play | leavecondo Walk Sleep -> dream Sleep | deaddog Sleep | wake Eat -> Eat chomp | chomp Play -> stuff(Toy, mouth) | hump(x,y) | getpetted(x,y) Toy -> ball | sock Walk -> poop Walk | trot Walk | sniff Walk | entercondo Several regularities are captured by the syntax. For example, these rules have the desirable property that pooping in the condo is ungrammatical. Obviously such grammatical details are not innate in the infant dog. This brings us to the question of rule acquisition and Universality. These context-free action rules are assumed to be learned by a neural network with "hidden" units[5] using the bark propagation method (see Rumelhart & McClelland, 1985; Cottrell 1985). The beauty of this is that Dogmatic Universality is achieved by assuming neural networks to be innate[6]. The above rules generate some impossible sequences, however. This is the job of the situation equation annotations. Some situations are impossible, and this acts as a filter on the generated strings. For example, an infinite string of stuff(Toy, mouth)'s are prohibited by the constraint that the situated dog can only fit one ball and one sock in her mouth at the same time. One of the goals of Naive Dog Physics is to determine these commonsense constraints. One of our major results is the discovery that dog force (df) is constant. Since df = mass * acceleration, this means that smaller dogs accelerate faster, and dogs at rest have infinite mass. This is intuitively appealing, and has been borne out by my dogs. ____________________ [1]We have decided not to use FOPC, as this has been proven by Schank (personal communication) to be inadequate, in a proof too loud to fit in this footnote. [2]The use of competence theories is a standard trick first intro- duced by Chomsky, which avoids the intrusion of reality on the theory. An example is Chomsky's theory of light bulb changing, which begins by rotating the ceiling... [3]Barwoof & Peppy (1983). Situation Dogmatics (SD) can be regarded as a competence theory of reality. See previous footnote. Using SD is a departure from Hayes, who exhorts us to "understand what [the represen- tation] means." In the Gibsonian world of Situation Dogmatics, we don't know what the representation means. That would entail information in our heads. Rather, following B&P, the information is out there, in the dog. Thus, for example, the dog's bark means there are surfers walking behind the condo. [4]Of course, a less ambitious approach would just try to account for dog day afternoons. [5]It is never clear in these models where these units are hidden, or who hid them there. The important thing is that you can't see them. [6]Actually this assumption may be too strong when applied to the dogs under consideration. However, this is much weaker than Pinker's as- sumption that the entirety of Joan Bresnan's mind is innate in the language learner. It is instructive to see how his rules would work here. We assume hump(x,y) is innate, and x is bound by the default s- function "Self". The first time the puppy is humped, the mismatch causes a new Passive humping entry to be formed, with the associated redundancy rule. Evidence for the generalization to other predicates is seen in the puppy subsequently trying to stuff her mouth into the ball. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From csvpi@vtcs1 Thu Feb 27 04:56:24 1986 Date: Thu, 27 Feb 86 04:56:21 est From: csvpi@vtcs1.VT To: fox@vtopus (MILLER,FRANCE,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by CSNET-RELAY.ARPA id a008778; 26 Feb 86 14:40 EST Date: Wed 26 Feb 1986 10:48-PST Reply-to: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V4 #36 To: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Thu, 27 Feb 86 04:36 EST AIList Digest Wednesday, 26 Feb 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 36 Today's Topics: Seminars - Solution to the Self-Referential Paradoxes (CSLI) & Approximate Deduction in Single Evidential Bodies (SRI) & Refutation Method for Horn Clauses with Equality (UPenn) & Persistent Memory (SU), Conferences - Suggestions for AAAI-86 & Theoretical Issues in NL Processing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon 24 Feb 86 09:04:40-PST From: Emma Pease Subject: Seminar - Solution to the Self-Referential Paradoxes (CSLI) CSLI COLLOQUIUM LOGIC OF POINTERS AND EVALUATIONS: THE SOLUTION TO THE SELF-REFERENTIAL PARADOXES Haim Gaifman Mathematics Department The Hebrew University Jerusalem Israel Visiting at SRI February 27, 1986 Ventura Hall Imagine the following exchange: Max: What I am saying at this very moment is nonsense. Moritz: Yes, what you have just said is nonsense. Evidently Max spoke nonsense and Moritz spoke to the point. Yet Max and Moritz appear to have asserted the same thing, namely: that Max spoke nonsense. Or consider the following two lines: line 1: The sentence written on line 1 is not true. line 2: The sentence written on line 1 is not true. Our natural intuition is that the self-referring sentence on line 1 is not true (whatever sense could be made of it). Therefore the sentence on line 2, which asserts this very fact, should be true. But what is written on line 2 is exactly the same as what is written on line 1. I shall argue that the unavoidable conclusion is that truth values should be assigned here to sentence-tokens and that any system in which truth is only type-dependent (e.g., Kripke's system and its variants) is inadequate for treating the self-referntial situation. Since the truth value of a token depends on the tokens to which it points, whose values depend in their turn on the tokens to which they point,and so on, the whole network of pointings (which might include complicated loops) must be taken into account. I shall present a simple formal way of representing such networks and an algorithm for evaluating the truth values. On the input 'the sentence on line 1' it returns GAP but on the input 'the sentence on line 2' it returns TRUE. And it yields similarly intuitive results in more complicated situations. For an overall treatment of self-reference the tokens have to be replaced by the more general pointers. A pointer is any obgect used to point to a sentence-type (a token is a special case of pointer it points to the sentence of which it is a token). Calling a pointer is like a procedural call in a program, eventually a truth valye (TRUE, FALSE or GAP) is returned - which is the output of the algorithm. I shall discuss some more recent work (since my last SRI talk) - variants of the system and its possible extensions to mathematical powerful languages. Attempts to make such comprehensive systems throw new light on the problem of constructing "universal languages". ------------------------------ Date: Mon 24 Feb 86 15:00:13-PST From: RUSPINI@SRI-AI.ARPA Subject: Seminar - Approximate Deduction in Single Evidential Bodies (SRI) AURA (Automated Uncertainty Reasoning Assembly) is about to resume its AURAcles after some months of suspended animation. The next talk (abstract below) is scheduled for next Friday, February 28, 10AM at EK242. We plan to meet as regularly as possible each Friday thereafter at the same time. APPROXIMATE DEDUCTION IN SINGLE EVIDENTIAL BODIES Enrique H. Ruspini Artificial Intelligence Center SRI International The main objective of this talk is the review of ongoing research on the interpretation and manipulation of conditional evidence within single evidential bodies. In the context of a single body of evidence, conditional evidence is expressed as constraints on the possible values of propositional truth under the assumption that a specific proposition within the frame of discernment is known to be true. In this context deductive inference consists of the combination of the information about the probable truth of ground propositions (facts) and conditional evidence (rules) to arrive at new (a posteriori) estimates of propositional support. This process is both conceptually and procedurally different from those undertaken when several bodies of evidence are combined (e.g. using the Dempster Combination Rule). The role of conditional evidence constraints (henceforth called approximate or uncertain rules) is examined from the viewpoint of both the theory of interval probabilities and the Dempster-Shafer Calculus of Evidence. These approaches to the representation and analysis of uncertain information will be briefly described together with their theoretical underpinnings. Several possible interpretations of approximate rules will be discussed and compared. Possible approaches for the automation of approximate deduction (under each interpretation) will also be presented. Time permitting, the role of these results in the generalization of Reynold's approach to the generation of support and elementary mass measures will also be discussed. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Feb 86 17:25 EST From: Tim Finin Subject: Seminar - Refutation Method for Horn Clauses with Equality (UPenn) Forwarded From: Dale Miller on Mon 24 Feb 1986 at 17:08 UPenn Math-CS Logic Seminar A Refutation Method for Horn Clauses with Equality using E-unification Jean H. Gallier (with Stan Raatz) Tuesday, 25 February 1986, 4:30 - 6:00, 4E17 DRL A refutation method for equational Horn clauses, Horn clauses with or without equational atoms, is investigated. This method combines standard SLD-resolution and unification modulo equations. In the case of ground Horn clauses, unsatisfiability of a set of Horn clauses with equality is decidable in time O(nlog(n)). In the general case however, even though the refutation method itself is complete, unification modulo equations is undecidable. In fact, unification modulo equations is NP-complete even in the case of ground equations. Considering this point, we explore subcases of equational Horn clauses for which unification modulo equations is tractable, and consider the implications for logic programming. Finally, we compare this new method with other existing methods. ** Next week: G. Rosolini from CMU will speak on "Categories for Partial Computations". ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Feb 86 23:02:40 pst From: David Cheriton Subject: Seminar - Persistent Memory (SU) PERSISTENT OBJECT SYSTEM FOR SYMBOLIC COMPUTERS Satishe Thatte Texas Instruments Thurs. Feb 27th at 4:15 pm. MJH 352 (Part of Distributed Systems Group Project meeting) The advent of automatically managed, garbage-collected virtual memory was crucial to the development of today's symbolic processing. No analogous capability has yet been developed in the domain of "persistent" objects managed by a file system or database. As a consequence, the programmer is forced to flatten rich structures of objects resident in virtual memory before the objects can be stored in a file system or conventional database. This task puts a great burden on the programmer and adversely affects system performance. A persistent object system that extends the automatic storage management concepts of a symbolic computer to the domain of persistent objects will be presented. The system supports long-term, reliable retention of richly structured objects in virtual memory itself, without resorting to a file system. Therefore, the system requires a crash recovery scheme at the level of virtual memory. The persistent object system is based on a uniform memory abstraction, which eliminates the distinction between transient objects (data structures) and persistent objects (files and databases), and therefore, allows the same set of powerful and flexible operations with equal efficiency on both transient and persistent objects from a programming language such as Lisp or Prolog, without requiring a special-purpose database language. It is expected that the exploitation of such a capability will lead to significant breakthroughs in knowledge/data base management. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Feb 86 1016 PST From: Bob Filman Subject: Conference - Suggestions for AAAI-86 The deadline for workshop and panel proposals for AAAI-86 is fast approaching. (Officially, March 1, but we'll give a few days grace to good ideas.) Requests for ENGINEERING panels and workshops should be sent to: Tom Kehler Program Co-Chairman for AAAI-86 Intellicorp 1975 EL Camino Real West Mountain View, California 94040 Kehler@USC-ECL.ARPA Requests for SCIENTIFIC panels and workshops should be sent to: Stan Rosenschein Program Co-Chairman for AAAI-86 SRI International 333 Ravenswood Avenue Menlo Park, California 94025 Stan@SRI-AI.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Feb 86 15:58:56 mst From: "Yorick Wilks " Subject: Conference - Theoretical Issues in NL Processing TINLAP3 Third workshop on Theoretical Issues in Natural Language Processing. Las Cruces, New Mexico January 7-9, 1987. The workshop, supported by the Association for Computational Linguistics, will follow the format of its predecessors at MIT (1975), Champaign-Urbana (1978) and Nova Scotia (1985): panels of distinguished figures in computational linguistics, AI, and related disciplines will discuss the major topics at issue. Preliminary registration information: Yorick Wilks, Box3CRL, NMSU, Las Cruces, NM 88001, or CSNET:az@nmsu. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vtcs1 Fri Feb 28 22:36:15 1986 Date: Fri, 28 Feb 86 22:36:11 est From: comsat@vtcs1.VT To: fox@vtopus (MILLER,FRANCE,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by CSNET-RELAY.ARPA id a016807; 27 Feb 86 6:20 EST Date: Wed 26 Feb 1986 22:08-PST Reply-to: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V4 #37 To: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 28 Feb 86 22:19 EST AIList Digest Thursday, 27 Feb 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 37 Today's Topics: Queries - Reviewers for Expert Systems in Government & Civil Engineering CAD/CAE/Expert Systems & Theorem Provers & Knowledge Representation Translation & Rete Algorithm & Lisp for the PRIME & Dec AI VaxStation & ICAI & Visual Programming Languages & Associative Memory & Prolog Books ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 Feb 86 10:26:56 -0500 From: Duke Briscoe Subject: Reviewers for ESIG papers Volunteers are needed to act as reviewers for the Second Expert Systems in Government Conference, which will be held from Oct. 20-24, 1986. The topics of the conference are knowledge based applications and supporting technologies. A full description of the conference was given in the Vol. 3 Issue 186 AIList, on December 15. If you wish to be a reviewer, please identify your interests and send your name, address, and phone number to karna@mitre or use US mail to Dr. Kamal N. Karna AI Center The Mitre Corporation 1820 Dolley Madison Blvd. McLean, VA 22102 ------------------------------ Date: 25 Feb 86 07:59:56 EST From: Mary.Lou.Maher@CIVE.RI.CMU.EDU Subject: civil engineering exert systems I am preparing a report for the ASCE and US Army Corp on the use of expert system techniques in civil engineering. I would appreciate a response from anyone active in this area; all those who respond will be put on a mailing list to receive the completed report. Some specific civil engineering domains are: structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, construction engineering, transportation engineering, and environmental engineering. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Feb 86 17:28:45 GMT From: ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!gatech!gitpyr!allen @ucbvax.berkeley.edu Subject: Looking for publication I am trying to locate a source for a publication referenced as "Knowledge Engineering in Computer-Aided Design", IFIP, Sep-1984 I would also be interested in any work going on in the area of expert systems in the field of Civil Engineering Computer Aided Engineering. In particular, I would be interested in learing more about work going on at Carnegi-Mellon on KADBASE. (H.C. Howard, D.R. Rehak, are you out there ?) -- "It's quite easy, if you don't know how. That's the important bit. Be not at all sure how you're doing it." -Arthur Dent P. Allen Jensen Manager, Systems Division GTICES Systems Laboratory Department of Civil Engineering Georgia Insitute of Technology Atlanta Georgia, 30332-0355 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,masscomp,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!allen ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 86 18:59:40 GMT From: ihnp4!stolaf!mmm!umn-cs!hyper!mark@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Mark Mendel) Subject: WANTED: Theorem Provers I would like to get my hands on a PD or otherwise free theorem prover. Anything from resolution to Boyer-Moore would be OK. Lisp preferable, though C would be OK. Please respond via mail. Also, I think that such a thing really should be in the mod.sources archive. So if you offer me something you've written, please indicate whether it's OK if I submit it. Thanks in advance, Mark G. Mendel {ihnp4,umn-cs}!hyper!mark ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Feb 86 10:08 EST From: Kurt Godden Subject: Knowledge Representation and Translation Could anyone send to me or post to the net references on conversion of knowledge from one representational structure to another? For example, translating between frames and semantic nets would be of interest. If not directly related to explicit translation, articles discussing >formal< (non-)equivalence between/among various representations of knowledge is also of interest. If there are no postings directly to the net, I will summarize and post anything of general interest I may receive. -Kurt Godden godden.gmr@csnet-relay (or, if that doesn't work: godden%gmr@csnet-relay) ------------------------------ Date: Wed 26 Feb 86 17:02:38-PST From: Matt Heffron Subject: Query -- Rete Algorithm Would someone please send me the reference(s) describing the Rete algorithm. Also, any words of wisdom from people who have tried/succeeded in implementing the algorithm would be appreciated. Reply to me directly at: BEC.HEFFRON@USC-ECL.ARPA or, Matt Heffron Beckman Instruments, Inc. 2500 Harbor Blvd. MS X-11 Fullerton, CA 92634 Thanks, Matt Heffron ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Feb 86 12:18:07 CST From: Glenn Veach Subject: Lisp for the PRIME? I would like to make the following inquiry for a friend. Does anyone know of any versions of LISP which will run on the Prime 9750? They are particularly interested in getting a version of Common Lisp if this is possible. Also, is there any expert systems such as OPS5 which will run on the same machine? Post your answers on the List or send them to me. Thanks a lot. glenn ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Feb 86 15:18:08 est From: nikhil@NEWTOWNE-VARIETY.LCS.MIT.EDU (Rishiyur S. Nikhil) Subject: Opinion on Dec AI VaxStation? A friend of mine from India (Prof. Rajeev Sangal, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur) is looking into buying Lisp machines for AI research. Because of lack of maintenance, support etc. in India, he must rule out Symbolics, LMI, TI, Xerox, etc. The one exception seems to be an AI VaxStation from DEC (DEC is represented in India). So, he would like to obtain opinions about the DEC AI VaxStation from anyone who has used it. If you are/have been a user, I would appreciate it if you could send me your appraisal. Reply to (ARPAnet): nikhil@xx.lcs.mit.edu and I will pass it on to him. If there is interest, I can also summarize my findings to this list. Thanks in advance for your help. Rishiyur Nikhil ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Feb 86 22:23:38 -0500 From: bradley@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Subject: ICAI As part of the newly formed Intelligent Engineering Systems Laboratory at MIT, I am working on (hopefully) intelligent tutoring systems for engineering applications. I was curious what sorts of tutoring strategies and knowledge representation schemes other researchers in the ICAI area are using. If anyone would be so kind as to send a description of what they've found works/doesn't work for the applications they are working on, or even a sample system for me to play with, with comentary, I would be eternally grateful. Also, is anyone interested in forming a mail group to discuss ICAI issues (and not bore everyone else)? -Steve Bradley [The mail group already exists in the form of AI-Ed@SUMEX-AIM. I have forwarded this message to them. -- KIL] ------------------------------ Date: Wed 26 Feb 86 10:48:09-PST From: Marvin Zauderer Subject: Visual Programming Languages and AI I'm starting some work on a visual programming language (VPL); in particular, since I'm disappointed with the current state of software authoring systems for educators, I'm planning to build such a system that will run in/on top of an existing VPL. I'm now in the process of doing some background research, and I've assembled a fairly large number of references on the topics of VPLs and authoring systems. As you might imagine, the search space for the former topic is rather immense, since the study of VPLs involves the study of so many disciplines (e.g. cognitive science, AI, human-computer interaction, programming environments, interactive graphics, visual thinking, etc.). Of course, this is also precisely why I'm so interested in VPLs and VPL applications. I'd welcome any assistance in making the search space smaller: pointers to references or to helpful people would be much appreciated. A nice side effect of this search is the bibliography I'm creating; I will post it if there is sufficient interest. Also, I'd be interested in starting a discussion about VPLs and the connection between VPLs and AI. As a final point, I've questioned whether or not this message belongs in AIList, and I've decided that it does. I've reasoned that, in building such systems, one must think about about how people think, which is precisely the kind of thing AI researchers do. This may be a rather flimsy justification, but I figure the worst that can happen is an avalanche of angry mail. Also: one would hope that the results of this thinking would go into the kind of authoring system I'm describing. Since this seems relevant to the topic of AI in Education, we've had some interesting discussions about these issues recently on the AI-ED list. I still think there may be a number of AIList readers interested in VPLs (and the associated issues) who do not receive AI-ED. Please correct/criticize me if you think a discussion of these issues does not belong on AIList -- I don't want to clutter up the netwaves. Cheers, Marvin Zauderer E-Mail: Zauderer@SU-SUSHI.ARPA USMail: c/o IRIS-FAD Cypress Hall, Room E-7 Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305 Telephone: (415) 497-4540 (415) 725-3159 ------------------------------ Date: 24 Feb 86 22:59:07 GMT From: decvax!wanginst!ulowell!dobro@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Chet Dobro) Subject: Associative Memory I have a question/observation/assumption that may be totally invalid, and I fully expect to get jumped all over about, but here it is: One of the biggest problems AI'ers seem to be having with their machines is one of data access. Now, a human [or other sentient life-form :-)] has a large pool of experience (commonly refered to as a swamp) that he/she/it has access to. It is linked together in many obscure ways (as shown by word-association games) so that for any given thought (or problem) there are a vast number (ususally) of (not-necessarily) connected replies. Thinking of that swamp as a form of data-base, does the problem then boil down to one of finding a path-key that would let you access all of the cross-referances quickly? Thoughts, please? (Hopefully constructive...) Gryphon ------------------------------ Date: 26 Feb 86 14:21:00 EST From: "INFO1::ELDER" Reply-to: "INFO1::ELDER" Subject: Prolog Books Thanks. P.S. If you reply to me, please drop off the '.DECNET' that may appear in the header of my message. Our mailer has been acting funny lately. My address is ELDER@WPAFB-INFO1 and not ELDER@WPAFB-INFO1.DECNET. Greg Elder ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vtcs1 Fri Feb 28 22:36:09 1986 Date: Fri, 28 Feb 86 22:36:04 est From: comsat@vtcs1.VT To: fox@vtopus (MILLER,FRANCE,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by CSNET-RELAY.ARPA id a018107; 27 Feb 86 9:23 EST Date: Wed 26 Feb 1986 22:35-PST Reply-to: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V4 #38 To: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 28 Feb 86 22:22 EST AIList Digest Thursday, 27 Feb 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 38 Today's Topics: Query - Prolog Books, AI Tools - Pointer to Logo & Arity/Prolog 4.0, Binding - Ross Quinlan, Humor - "Real" Story Behind MRS's Name & NL Dialogue System, Comment - TI's Progress (SI Interactions Review), Cognitive Psychology - Knowledge Structures, Expert Systems - Software Engineering, Knowledge Representation - The Community Authoring Project ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Feb 86 14:21:00 EST From: elder@WPAFB-INFO1.ARPA Subject: Prolog Books Could someone recommend a good list of books about Prolog (besides "Programming in Prolog" by Clocksin) which would be good for someone to read who is justing learning the language? Greg Elder [This message was accidentally truncated in the last digest due to the lack of a blank line following the header. -- KIL] ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 86 14:02:04 GMT From: rochester!ritcv!rocksvax!rocksanne!sunybcs!ellie!rapaport@seismo (William J. Rapaport) Subject: Re: Re: Pointers to Logo? > > >> The only "texts" on Logo which I have thus far been able to locate > >> are of the "How to Teach Logo to Your First Grade Class" variety. > >> -- > >> Michael J. Hartsough Try Brian Harvey, COMPUTER SCIENCE LOGO STYLE, a series of 3 books, 2 of which have appeared, published by MIT Press (isbn for the first, called "Intermediate Programming" is 0-262-58072-1). -- William J. Rapaport Assistant Professor Dept. of Computer Science, SUNY Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260 (716) 636-3193, 3180 uucp: ...{allegra,decvax,watmath}!sunybcs!rapaport ...{cmcl2,hao,harpo}!seismo!rochester!rocksvax!sunybcs!rapaport cs: rapaport@buffalo arpa: rapaport%buffalo@csnet-relay bitnet: rapaport@sunybcs ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 86 06:59:44 GMT From: sdcsvax!noscvax!ogasawar@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Todd H. Ogasawara) Subject: Arity/Prolog 4.0 users out there? I just received the Arity/Prolog 4.0 update to their interpreter and compiler for the IBM PC a little while ago and have found this implementation to be ever better and faster than the last (which was very good). Would be very interested to know if other netlanders are using Arity/Prolog and, if so, what you are doing with it. ...todd Todd Ogasawara, Computer Sciences Corp. NOSC-Hawaii Laboratories UUCPmail: {akgua,allegra,decvax,ihnp4,ucbvax}!sdcsvax!noscvax!ogasawar MILNET: OGASAWAR@NOSC ------------------------------ Date: 17 Feb 86 16:02:00 GMT From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucdcsb!mozetic@ucbvax.berkeley.edu Subject: Binding - Ross Quinlan Re: Need source of ID3 for Machine Learning Quinlan's adress is: Ross Quinlan, Head, School of Computing Science, New South Wales Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, 2007 New South Wales, Australia ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Feb 86 14:24:03 est From: Russell Greiner Subject: "Real" Story behind MRS's name > Date: Tue, 4 Feb 86 15:46:28 EST > From: munnari!goanna.oz!wjb@seismo.CSS.GOV (Warwick Bolam) > Subject: Correction to correction to name of MRS > > Is there anyone who REALLY knows what MRS stands for? I have a number of > MRS documents and NONE of them says "MRS stand for ..." Years ago, Mike genesereth, Russ greiner and dave Smith got together, along with some other illustrious researchers, and decided to create a new and better representation language. To achieve our original objective of modifiability, the Modifiable Representation System was born. When we noticed that the only thing truly modifiable about it was its name, it was rechristened the Meta-level Representation System. As this, too, seemed a bit misleading, we considered several other names. Soon, we were forced to realize that we had an inherently Misnamed Representation System, which still seems its best name. (Of course, if this name really is appropriate then it is, in fact, inappropriate. That, in turn, means it is not misnamed, which means it is misnamed, which ...) [Apology: The story above is basically correct; only the names have been changed ...] Russ Greiner University of Toronto (formerly of Stanford University). ------------------------------ Date: 20 Feb 86 20:59:21 GMT From: tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!michaelm@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (michael maxwell) Subject: Re: Dialogue help please needed ? In article <720@aimmi.UUCP> c/o george@aimmi.UUCP (George Weir) writes: >... if you have a system working which >manages dialogue in of course natural langauge (complete with efficient >interpreter/complier), and its able to cope with all known syntactic forms, >as well as most semantics, please send me a copy... My wife and I are currently working on such a system. The project name is "SCOTT", which stands for "Self COmmunicating ToT." Our project has been underway for just over three years now, not counting a nine month prototyping period. Unfortunately, we are unable to post to the network... Additionally, there are a few bugs, such as inappropriate case marking ("My wanna go to the truck store!"), incorrect placement of negation ("My no wanna go to sleep!"), "syllabic" metathesis ("You got for to buy me candy" = "You _forgot_ to..."), etc. We regard these as trivial problems, since the problems which linguists acknowledge to be truly difficult (e.g. the semantics of nonexistent entities, such as imaginary people that cause the breakage/ disappearance of objects, and such pragmatic issues as proper attachment of PPs and extraposed relative clauses) appear to be well on the way to resolution. We would also like to report that it has been great fun... -- Mike Maxwell Boeing Artificial Intelligence Center ...uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!michaelm ------------------------------ Date: Mon 24 Feb 86 09:20:59-PST From: Tom Garvey Subject: Re: Review - SI Interactions, 2/86 It sounds as if TI for all their investment in AI, has made progress toward the partial solution of two problems. Since this is about the average number of examples required for receiving a Ph.D. in AI, they seem to have partially fulfilled the requirements. Clearly, expertise in AI marketing is what students should be striving for today -- the state-of-the-art of the technology itself is of (at best) secondary importance. Cheers, Tom ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Feb 86 12:30:41 pst From: decwrl!pyramid!hplabs!tektronix!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!bcsaic!pamp @ucbvax.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: Cognitive Psychology - Knowledge Structures In article <8602100723.AA28871@ucbvax.berkeley.edu> you write: >From: THOMPSON%umass-cs.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA > > I am looking for information about the knowledge structure > differences of people who have different levels of expertise > in a subject. For example, what is the difference in the > knowledge structure of an "apprentice", a "journeyman",or a > "master". > > Roger Thompson > Thompson@UMASS One that I can recommend right off hand is - Kolodner,Janet L.,1984,Towards an understanding of the role of experience in the evolution from novice to expert: in Developments in expert systems;M.J.Coombs,ed.; Academic Press,p.95-116. You might also look into Schank's work Schank,R.C.,1982, Dynamic Memory:A thoery of learning in people and computers; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. P.M.Pincha-Wagener ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Feb 86 18:00:35 est From: Valerie Kierulf Subject: Re: Expert Systems and Software Engineering Jeg kan ikke hjelpe deg, men etter det som jeg ser, leser og hoerer, har folkne som driver paa med AI aldri hoert noe om Software Engineering! Jeg ville vaere veldig glad aa hoere av det motsatte !!!! Translation: I cannot help you. But after all I see, read and hear, people that have to do with AI don't know about the existence of Software Engineering. I would be very glad to hear the opposite !!!!!! Valerie Kierulf ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Feb 86 18:12:28 est From: Rob Jacob Subject: Expert Systems and Software Engineering Saw your message about software engineering for expert systems on the AIList...glad you asked. Here at the Naval Research Laboratory Judy Froscher and I are trying to work on just this problem. We are interested in how rule-based systems can be built so that they will be easier to change. Our basic solution is to divide the set of rules up into pieces and limit the connectivity of the pieces. I, too, would be very interested to hear about any other work in this area. When we describe our work to people, we often hear "That is just what we need...why isn't somebody working on this?" But we do not often hear about other people actually working on this problem. Two you might try are Gregg Vesonder at Bell Labs and Steve Fickas at University of Oregon. I'm going to attach a short abstract about our work to the end of this message and some references. Good luck, Rob Jacob ARPA: jacob@nrl-css UUCP: ...!decvax!nrl-css!jacob SNAIL: Code 7590, Naval Research Lab, Washington, D.C. 20375 Developing a Software Engineering Methodology for Rule-based Systems Robert J.K. Jacob Judith N. Froscher Naval Research Laboratory Washington, D.C. Current expert systems are typically difficult to change once they are built. The objective of this research is to develop a design methodology that will make a knowledge-based system easier to change, particularly by people other than its original developer. The basic approach for solving this problem is to divide the information in a knowledge base and attempt to reduce the amount of information that each single programmer must understand before he can make a change to the expert system. We thus divide the domain knowledge in an expert system into groups and then attempt to limit carefully and specify formally the flow of information between these groups, in order to localize the effects of typical changes within the groups. By studying the connectivity of rules and facts in several typical rule-based expert systems, we found that they seem to have a latent structure, which can be used to support this approach. We have developed a methodology based on dividing the rules into groups and concentrating attention on those facts that carry information between rules in different groups. We have also studied several algorithms for grouping the rules automatically and for measuring coupling and cohesion of alternate rule groupings in a knowledge base. REFERENCES J.N. Froscher and R.J.K. Jacob, "Designing Expert Systems for Ease of Change," Proc. IEEE Symposium on Expert Systems in Government, Washington, D.C., pp. 246-251, 1985. R.J.K. Jacob and J.N. Froscher, "Developing a Software Engineering Methodology for Rule-based Systems," 1985 Conference on Intelligent Systems and Machines, Oakland University, 1985. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Feb 86 15:45:31 pst From: Bruce McHenry Subject: The Community Authoring Project [Forwarded from the AI-Ed distribution by Laws@SRI-AI.] A New R&D Program: The Community Authoring Project (CAP) The goal of the CAP is to provide a system which a large number of people can use to create and store a complex body of knowledge. Such a body, because it is authored and edited by many people, will address a wide variety of individual perspectives. Individuals will be guided through this body with the help of user agents. The user agents will correspond with "idea" agents which monitor the formation of communities. While this approach applies to information and management systems in general, the CAP aims to develop prototypes which can be used in leading universities over the next few years. Such universities will posess advanced workstations upon which CAP software may run. The resulting community information system should provide immediate benefits to teachers and students who may use it to create, either alone or in conference, multimedia (visual & aural) "sections". Sections may be embedded in eachother and interactively created, explored and manipulated. CAP technology will enable communities to create broadbased bodies of knowledge in ways such that the individual's "question in mind" can be readily addressed. The testbed sites will also provide attractive cultures for research into AI (i.e. knowledge based, natural language and self-organizing) systems. However, the CAP's design philosophy is based on a pragmatic view of common human methods for locating and disseminating information. Its basis in community participation provides a radical departure from current methods of authoring interactive materials and it is expected that the CAP will dramatically influence the development of interactive media such as digital compact discs. Bruce McHenry ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vtcs1 Fri Feb 28 22:47:30 1986 Date: Fri, 28 Feb 86 22:47:26 est From: comsat@vtcs1.VT To: fox@vtopus (MILLER,FRANCE,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by CSNET-RELAY.ARPA id a020387; 27 Feb 86 13:36 EST Date: Thu 27 Feb 1986 09:50-PST Reply-to: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V4 #39 To: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 28 Feb 86 22:25 EST AIList Digest Thursday, 27 Feb 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 39 Today's Topics: Seminars - Hierarchical Planning and Allocation (USC) & Cerebral Lateralization (UCB) & Off-Line Programming of Robots (UPenn) & The Limits of Calculative Rationality (SU) & Intelligent Concept Design Assistant (Edinburgh) & The Purposes of Vision (Edinburgh) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Feb 1986 13:09-PST From: usc-cse.usc.edu@gasser Subject: Seminar - Hierarchical Planning and Allocation (USC) USC DISTRIBUTED PROBLEM SOLVING GROUP MEETING: Planning and Resource Allocation in Time- and Cost-Constrained Environments : A Hierarchical Approach Norman Sadeh Ph.D. Student, CS Dept., USC Wednesday, 3/5/86, 3:00 - 4:00 PM Seaver 319 Real-life planners should be provided with an ability to allocate resources in time and cost constrained environments. A flexible manufacturing system is an example of such an environment. We will describe a hierarchical approach to the problem of allocating resources during the planning process. We believe that the concept of resource is directly related to the level of detail of the plan. A same object can be considered as a resource at a higher level of abstraction and as a common object at a lower level. By allowing the planner to decide upon which particular instances of certain high level resources to allocate to some high level tasks, taking into account time and cost constaints posted on the overall plan, we will drastically reduce the search space to be investigated. Both centralized and distributed approaches will be considered. Questions: Dr. Les Gasser, CS Dept., USC (213) 743-7794 or Norman Sadeh: sadeh@usc-cse.usc.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Feb 86 15:54:31 PST From: admin%cogsci@BERKELEY.EDU (Cognitive Science Program) Subject: Seminar - Cerebral Lateralization (UCB) BERKELEY COGNITIVE SCIENCE PROGRAM Cognitive Science Seminar -- IDS 237B Tuesday, March 4, 11:00 - 12:30 2515 Tolman Hall Discussion: 12:30 - 1:30 3105 Tolman (Beach Room) ``COGNITIVE MODELS OF HUMAN CEREBRAL LATERALIZATION: A TUTORIAL REVIEW'' Curtis Hardyck Department of Psychology and School of Education, University of California at Berkeley Models of human cerebral functioning have ranged from notions of extreme anatomical specificity to beliefs in global functioning. Within the field of cerebral lateralization, opinions have ranged from positions favoring extreme lateralization (almost all functions localized in one hemisphere) to bilateralization (almost all functions existing in both hemispheres). Intermin- gled with these positions have been promulgations of hemispher- icity as polar opposites, e.g. right brain (creative insight- fulness) vs left brain (lackluster drudgery), which have been adopted into popular culture. I will provide a brief historical review of this problem and a discussion of current cognitive models of lateralization appropriate for examination within a cognitive science frame- work. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Feb 86 12:40 EST From: Tim Finin Subject: Seminar - Off-Line Programming of Robots (UPenn) Colloquium 3pm Thursday, February 27, 1986 216 Moore School, University of Pennsylvania TOPICS IN THE OFF-LINE PROGRAMMING OF ROBOTS Vincent Hayward Computer Vision and Robotics Lab., McGill University Programming robots is a difficult task, even in the case of the simplest applications. For this reason, research in robot programming has been evolving in two distinct directions. The first one is aimed at constructing goal driven automated robot programming systems. Another trend is to design so-called off-line programming systems to ease the work of a human robot programmer. These systems include a set of programming aids such as graphic facilities, reporting of performances, interfaces to CAD/CAM systems, and pleasant user interfaces. In the view of developing off-line programming systems, I will first present solutions to the problem of collision detection. These methods belong to a continuum of schemes according to the method selected for representing the workspace and the robot, and the amount of computations performed before testing a particular trajectory. I will then discuss a method based on a recursive decomposition of the workspace, also referred to as an octree model, as a good tradeoff for a class of applications. I will then present a project currently underway aimed at the construction of CAD models from range data which will also facilitate the programming of robots. Finally, I will discuss the adequacy of current robot programming primitives and propose a new scheme based on how sensors interact with robot control systems. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Feb 86 1534 PST From: Matthew Ginsberg Subject: Seminar - The Limits of Calculative Rationality (SU) In light of what I expect will be department-wide interest in the following talk, this week's research meeting/seminar of the KSL will instead be a department-wide event. The talk will run from 12.05 until 1.00 on February 28 and will be held in the Chemistry Gazebo. The room is fairly small, so anyone interested in attending would be well advised to arrive early. Matt Ginsberg FROM SOCRATES TO EXPERT SYSTEMS: THE LIMITS OF CALCULATIVE RATIONALITY BY Hubert L. Dreyfus University of California Berkeley An examination of the general epistemological assumptions behind Artificial Intelligence research with special reference to recent work in the development of expert systems. All AI work assumes that knowledge must be represented in the mind as symbolic descriptions. Expert system builders further assume that expertise consists in problem-solving and that problem-solving consists in analyzing a situation in terms of objective features and then finding a situation- action rule which determines what to do. I will argue that expert system builders fail to recognize the real character of expert intuitive understanding. Expertise is acquired in a five-step process: The BEGINNER does, indeed, pick out objective features and follow strict rules like a computer. The ADVANCED BEGINNER, however, responds to meaningful aspects of the situation which are recognized as similar to prototypical cases, without similarity being analyzed into objective features. At the next stage, the COMPETENT performer learns to figure out a strategy and to pay attention only to features and aspects which are relevant to his plan. The fourth stage, PROFICIENCY, is achieved when the performer no longer has to figure out his strategy but immediately sees the appropriate strategy. Finally, the EXPERT, after many years of experience, is able to do what works without facing a problem and without having to make any logical calculations. Experts presumably do this by storing many whole situations and associated actions in memory and responding to their current situation in terms of its overall similarity to a situation already successfully dealt with. On the basis of this model one can see that expert systems based on rules extracted from experts do not capture the expert's expertise and so cannot be expected to perform at expert level. A review of the successes and failures of various expert systems confirms this analysis. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Feb 86 10:43:01 GMT From: Gideon Sahar Subject: Seminar - Intelligent Concept Design Assistant (Edinburgh) EDINBURGH AI SEMINARS Date: Wednesday, 26th February l986 Time: 2.00 p.m. Place: Department of Artificial Intelligence Seminar Room - F10 80 South Bridge EDINBURGH. Dr. K.J. MacCallum, Department of Ship & Marine Technology, University of Strathclyde will give a seminar entitled - "An Intelligent Concept Design Assistant". This paper argues for the introduction of increased knowledge and reasoning capabilities into computer based design systems in such a way that they are able to enact the role of an intelligent assistant to the designer. It is shown that concept design involves a number of different types of knowledge, the most difficult of which to represent in a computer is "worldly" knowledge, either physical or commonsense. Two systems which are being developed to tackle aspects of this problem are described. The first system, called DESIGNER, handles numerical relationships; the second called SPACES is concerned with representing spatial arrangements. Keyords: Design, CAD, Knowledge Representation, Numerical Relationships, Spatial Arrangements. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Feb 86 10:43:39 GMT From: Gideon Sahar Subject: Seminar - The Purposes of Vision (Edinburgh) EDINBURGH AI SEMINARS Date: Wednesday, 5th March l986 Time: 2.00 p.m. Place: Department of Artificial Intelligence, Seminar Room, Forrest Hill, Edinburgh. Professor Aaron Sloman, School of Social Sciences, University of Sussex will give a seminar entitled - "The Purposes of Vision and the Architecture of a Mind". It is often taken for granted that the purpose of vision is to take in one or two static or changing 2-D arrays of information about the current optic field and produce descriptions of the 3-D objects from which the light has been reflected. This treats the visual system as having a narrowly defined set of inputs and outputs and encourages a conception of the visual system as a separable module in an intelligent mechanism, with relatively few channels of communication with other modules. The talk will reflect on the variety of visual inputs and outputs, the possibility of integration with other senses at different levels, and how these relate to the different purposes to which vision can be put. One implication seems to be that the visual system may have an architecture and relationship to other mental processes, very different from what is normally assumed. Might we sometimes see with our ears and hear with our eyes? ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vtcs1 Fri Feb 28 23:03:53 1986 Date: Fri, 28 Feb 86 23:03:50 est From: comsat@vtcs1.VT To: fox@vtopus (MILLER,FRANCE,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by CSNET-RELAY.ARPA id a026193; 28 Feb 86 1:48 EST Date: Thu 27 Feb 1986 22:27-PST Reply-to: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V4 #40 To: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 28 Feb 86 22:36 EST AIList Digest Friday, 28 Feb 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 40 Today's Topics: Queries - Lisp Books & Common Lisps & International Logo Exchange, Knowledge Representation - Translation & Associative Memory, Methodology - The Community Authoring Project & AI Taxonomy, Literature - Scientific DataLink Index To AI Research 1954-1984 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 26 Feb 86 12:35:22 CST From: "Glenn O. Veach" Subject: Lisp in the classroom. This past year at the University of Kansas we used Scheme in two classes. In an undergraduate "Programming Languages" class we went through Abelson and Sussman's book while using Scheme for homework and class projects. In a graduate level "Artificial Intelligence" class we went through Kowalski's book and assigned a project to develop a Horne clause theorem prover which some implemented using Scheme. We are now trying to a curriculum for our "Introductory Programming" course in which we would use MacScheme (we now use Pascal) and would use Abelson and Sussman as a text (probably not the entire book). We would hope to use the remaining chapters of the text for our second semester programming course. We are of course encountering some resistance as we try to forge ahead with Lisp as a basic instructional language. I understand that MIT uses Abelson and Sussman as the text for their first course in programming languages. Do they cover the entire text? What do they use for more advanced programming language courses? Do any other schools have a similar curriculum? Has anyone been involved with the review process of ACM or IEEE for CS or ECE programs and suggested the use of Lisp as a basic language? What are some of the more compelling arguments for and against such an effort? If anyone could direct me to any B-Boards on ARPA net which would be interested in such a discussion I would appreciate it. Glenn O. Veach Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Department of Computer Science University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 66045-2192 (913) 864-4482 veach%ukans.csnet@csnet-relay ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Feb 86 16:44:28 est From: nikhil@NEWTOWNE-VARIETY.LCS.MIT.EDU (Rishiyur S. Nikhil) Subject: Public domain Common Lisps? Prof. Rajeev Sangal of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, is looking for implementations of Common Lisp in the public domain, running on any of these machines: Dec-10 running Tops-10 UNIX System III (with Berkeley enhancements) IBM PC's running MSDOS Are there any such implementations? If you have any information/opinions, please reply to nikhil@xx.lcs.mit.edu Thanks in advance, Rishiyur Nikhil ------------------------------ Date: 27 February 1986 13:44:31 EST THURSDAY From: FRIENDLY%YORKVM1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU ( Michael Friendly Subject: International Logo eXchange I am the North American field editor for a new Logo newsletter, ILX, edited by Dennis Harper at UCSB and published by Tom Lough of the National Logo Exchange, PO Box 5341, Charlottesville, VA 22905. I write a bi-monthly column on Logo-like educational computing, and am interested in hearing from people who are doing interesting things which might be of interest to the international Logo community. Please reply directly to FRIENDLY@YORKVM1.BITNET. Applications of Logo to particular subject areas, advanced ideas, list processing, metaphors for teaching Logo etc are of particular interest. I am also interested in developing a network forum for Logo workers, perhaps going thru AI-ED or perhaps separate from it, and would appreciate hearing from anyone of other nets, Bboards or conferences in this area. My background: I am a cognitive psychologist doing work on knowledge structure and memory organization, with interests toward the applied side, and am developing empirical techniques for cognitive mapping -- graphic portrayal of an individual's knowledge for some domain. I have written a book on Advanced Logo with applications in AI, computational linguistics, mathematics, physics, etc. oriented toward courses in Computer Applications in Psychology and as an advanced Logo book in a Faculty of Education. It is due to appear sometime in 86. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Feb 86 09:38:30 est From: Walter Hamscher Subject: Knowledge Representation and Translation Could anyone send to me or post to the net references on conversion of knowledge from one representational structure to another? For example, translating between frames and semantic nets would be of interest. Well, here's a couple of obvious ones that you probably already know about: * Brachman, R.J. On the Epistemological Status of Semantic Networks. * Etherington, D.W. and R. Reiter. On Inheritance Hierarchies with Exceptions. * Hayes, P.J. The Logic of Frames. These can be found in Brachman & Levesque's `Readings in Knowledge Representation', Morgan Kaufman 1985. Actually as I look through the TOC, I realize that you probably should just get the book if you don't have it. Lots of good stuff. Has an extensive partially annotated bibliography too. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Feb 86 10:11:11 est From: Walter Hamscher Subject: Associative Memory Date: 24 Feb 86 22:59:07 GMT One of the biggest problems AI'ers seem to be having with their machines is one of data access. Now, a human [or other sentient life-form :-)] has a large pool of experience (commonly refered to as a swamp) that he/she/it has access to. It is linked together in many obscure ways (as shown by word-association games) so that for any given thought (or problem) there are a vast number (usually) of (not-necessarily) connected replies. Thinking of that swamp as a form of data-base, does the problem then boil down to one of finding a path-key that would let you access all of the cross-referances quickly? It's not invalid but unfortunately it isn't new either. See any paper on Frames. The power of a frame-organized database isn't that there happen to be these defstructs called frames, it's in the fact that the frames are all connected together -- it's indexing by relatedness (how dense the connections have to be before you start to win is an open question, but see Lenat's recent stuff on CYC in the recent issue of AI Magazine). For background see Minsky (A Framework For Representing Knowledge, 1975). See NETL (e.g. Fahlman, Representing Real-world Knowledge, circa 1979, MIT Press). See Connection Machine literature (e.g. The Connection Machine, Hillis, 1985, MIT press). If you want to see the connection between AI KB's and traditional DBMS's covered extensively, see `Proceedings of the Islamorada Workshop on Large Scale Knowledge Base and Reasoning Systems' (Feb 85) chaired by Michael Brodie, available (I think) from Computer Corporation of America, Cambridge MA (617) 492-8860. ------------------------------ Date: Thu 27 Feb 86 13:33:56-PST From: Tom Garvey Subject: Re: The Community Authoring Project While I would certainly not want to be viewed as a stifler of creative urges, sometimes it seems that a little common-sense, reality, engineering knowledge, ..., injected into our blue-skying would go a long way toward setting feasible goals. What makes CAP (to which any yahoo could presumably add his personal view of the world) anything more than, say, a multimedia extension of this BBOARD? Cheers, Tom ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Feb 86 11:51 EST From: Tim Finin Subject: AI Taxonomy When Dave Waltz was overseeing the AI section of CACM, he developed a rather extensive taxomomy of AI. I recall seeing it published in AAAI magazine or SIGART or a similar source about 2 or 3 years ago. [I believe that he developed it for Scientific Datalink and then published it in AI Magazine. See the following message. -- KIL] ------------------------------ Date: Fri 21 Feb 86 09:42:28-PST From: C.S./Math Library Subject: Scientific DataLink Index To AI Research 1954-1984 [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] We have just added the four volume set of the Scientific DataLink Index To Artificial Intelligence Research 1954-1984. The four volumes including two abstract volumes, a subject volume, and an author index, are shelved with the serial indexes. These volumes index the Scientific DataLink microfiche collections for the following research institutions in AI: Bolt Beranek and Newman, CMU, University of Illinois, ISI, University of Massachusetts, MIT, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, Rutgers, SRI, Stanford AI and HPP, University of Texas Austin, Xerox Parc, and Yale. The subject volume is based on the AI classification as published in AI Magazine Spring 1985. I have included a photocopy of that article in the back of the subject volume. ACM is almost up-to-date with its ACM Guide To Computing Literature an annual index to the computer science literature. We have received up to 1984 and the 1985 volume is expected to be out this summer. ACM expects to have future annual volumes out by the summer of the following year covered by the volume. This annual index not only includes all entries from Computing Reviews Index but additional computer science articles not included in the monthly Computing Reviews. Monographs, proceedings, and journal articles are included in the index. Harry Llull ------------------------------ Date: 19 Feb 86 17:09:00 GMT From: hplabs!hp-pcd!orstcs!tgd@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (tgd) Subject: Re: taxonomizing in AI: useless, harmful Taxonomic reasoning is a weak, but important form of plausible reasoning. It makes no difference whether it is applied to man-made or naturally occurring phenomena. The debate on the status of artificial intelligence programs (and methods) as objects for empirical study has been going on since the field began. I assume you are familiar with the arguments put forth by Simon in his book Sciences of the Artificial. Consider the case of the steam engine and the rise of thermodynamics. After many failed attempts to improve the efficiency of the steam engine, people began to look for an explanation, and the result is one of the deepest theories of modern science. I hope that a similar process is occurring in artificial intelligence. By analyzing our failures and successes, we can attempt to find a deeper theory that explains them. The efforts by Michalski and others (including myself) to develop a taxonomy of machine learning programs is viewed by me, at least, not as an end in itself, but as a first step toward understanding the machine learning problem at a deeper level. Tom Dietterich Department of Computer Science Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331 dietterich@oregon-state.csnet ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From comsat@vtcs1 Fri Feb 28 23:01:11 1986 Date: Fri, 28 Feb 86 23:01:08 est From: comsat@vtcs1.VT To: fox@vtopus (MILLER,FRANCE,JOSLIN,ROACH,FOX) Subject: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Status: RO Received: from sri-ai.arpa by CSNET-RELAY.ARPA id a002518; 28 Feb 86 13:34 EST Date: Fri 28 Feb 1986 09:23-PST Reply-to: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V4 #41 To: AIList%sri-ai.arpa@CSNET-RELAY Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 28 Feb 86 22:40 EST AIList Digest Friday, 28 Feb 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 41 Today's Topics: Query - CERES and CASCADE Projects, Literature - Prolog Books & Lisp & Dreyfus on Skill Acquisition, Philosophy - The Dreyfus Controversy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Feb 86 20:07:41 GMT From: hplabs!turtlevax!weitek!kens@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Ken Stanley) Subject: Request for info on CERES and/or the CASCADE project Can anyone tell me anything about CERES, POLO, LASCAR or the CASCADE project? Is the CASCADE project state of the art or just an effort to catch up to work in the U.S.? I know nothing about any of the above. Hence, simple responses and references would be the most helpful. Ken Stanley weitek!kens ------------------------------ Date: 28-Feb-1986 0843 From: kevin%logic.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM (Kevin LaRue -- You can hack anything you want with TECO and DDT) Subject: Re: Prolog Books ``Introduction to Logic Programming'' Christopher John Hogger Academic Press, Inc. 1984 ISBN 0-12-352092-4 ------------------------------ Date: 28-Feb-1986 1129 From: kevin%logic.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM (Kevin LaRue -- You can hack anything you want with TECO and DDT) Subject: Re: Lisp in the classroom. Lisp is the language used in the undergraduate introductory course of the CS curriculum at Syracuse University. In the past there wasn't a textbook for the course; I believe that they are using Winston and Horn's ``Lisp'' now. ------------------------------ Date: Thu 27 Feb 86 23:34:38-PST From: Sang K. Cha Subject: Dreyfus on Skill Acquisition [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] [...] Actually, the five-stage developmental model of skill acquisition that Hubert Dreyfus stressed in his talk abstract appears in the following paper of Stuart Dreyfus : "Formal Models vs Human Situational Understanding : Inherent Limitations on the Modelling of Business Expertise," Office Technology and People,1(1982) 133-165 by Stuart Dreyfus, Dept of IE & OR, UC Berkeley -- Sang ------------------------------ Date: 18 Feb 86 23:45:53 GMT From: decwrl!glacier!kestrel!ladkin@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Peter Ladkin) Subject: Re: Re: "self-styled philosophers" (ladkin on Dreyfus) > > He is also a professional philosopher, holding a chair at > > U.C. Berkeley. His criticisms of AI claims are thoroughly thought > > through, with a rigor that a potential critic of his views would > > do well to emulate. He has done AI great service by forcing > > practitioners to be more self-critical. AAAI should award him > > distinguished membership! (benjamin) > Baloney. > [comments on Dreyfus on chess .....] > It seems arrogant > for him to reach conclusions about fields in which he is not > accomplished. This applies to both chess and AI. Before you cry *baloney*, how about addressing the issue? As I pointed out, but you deleted, his major argument is that there are some areas of human experience related to intelligence which do not appear amenable to machine mimicry. Do you (or anyone) think that this statement is obviously false? (Negate it and see if that sounds right). People reach (good and bad) conclusions about fields in which they are not accomplished all the time. That's how AI got started, and that's how computers got invented. Why is it that people get so heated about criticism of AI that they stoop to name-calling rather than addressing the points made? (That question has probably also been asked by Dreyfus). Peter Ladkin ------------------------------ Date: 20 Feb 86 04:27:50 GMT From: tektronix!uw-beaver!uw-june!jon@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Jon Jacky) Subject: Re: Technology Review article > (Technology Review cover says...) > After 25 years Artificial Intelligence has failed to live up to its promise > and there is no evidence that it ever will. Most of the comment in this newsgroup has addressed the second clause in this provocative statement. I think the first clause is more important, and it is indisputable. The value of the Dreyfuss brothers' article is to remind readers that when AI advocates make specific predictions, they are often over-optimistic. Personally, I do not find all of the Dreyfuss' speculations convincing. So what? AI work does not get funded to settle philosophical arguments, but because the funders hope to derive specific benefits. In particular, the DARPA Strategic Computing Program, the largest source of funds for AI work in the country, asserts that specific technologies (rule based expert systems, parallel processing) will deliver specific results (unmanned vehicles that can drive at 40 km/hr through battlefields, natural language systems with 10,000 word vocabularies) at a specific time (the early 1990's). One lesson of the article is that people should regard such claims skeptically. Jonathan Jacky, ...!ssc-vax!uw-beaver!uw-june!jon or jon@uw-june University of Washington ------------------------------ Date: 20 Feb 86 19:35:05 GMT From: ihnp4!ihwpt!olaf@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (olaf henjum) Subject: Re: "self-styled philosophers" Is there any other kind of "lover of wisdom" than a "self-styled" one? -- Olaf Henjum (ihnp4!ihwpt!olaf) (and, of course, my opinions are strictly my own ...) ------------------------------ Date: 20 Feb 86 18:26:12 GMT From: decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!bbnccv!bbncc5!mfidelma@ucbvax .berkeley.edu (Miles Fidelman) Subject: Re: Technology Review article About 14 years ago Hubert Dreyfus wrote a paper titled "Why Computers Can't Play Chess" - immediately thereafter, someone at the MIT AI lab challenged Dreyfus to play one of the chess programs - which trounced him royally - the output of this was an MIT AI Lab Memo titled "The Artificial Intelligence of Hubert Dreyfus, or Why Dreyfus Can't Play Chess". The document was hilarious. If anyone still has a copy, I'd like to arrange a xerox of it. Miles Fidelman (mfidelman@bbncc5.arpa) ------------------------------ Date: 20 Feb 86 18:28:27 GMT From: amdcad!amdimage!prls!philabs!dpb@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Paul Benjamin) Subject: Re: Re: Re: "self-styled philosophers" > (ladkin on Dreyfus) > > > He is also a professional philosopher, holding a chair at > > > U.C. Berkeley. His criticisms of AI claims are thoroughly thought > > > through, with a rigor that a potential critic of his views would > > > do well to emulate. He has done AI great service by forcing > > > practitioners to be more self-critical. AAAI should award him > > > distinguished membership! > (benjamin) > > Baloney. > > [comments on Dreyfus on chess .....] > > It seems arrogant > > for him to reach conclusions about fields in which he is not > > accomplished. This applies to both chess and AI. > > Before you cry *baloney*, how about addressing the issue? > As I pointed out, but you deleted, his major argument is that > there are some areas of human experience related to intelligence > which do not appear amenable to machine mimicry. > Do you (or anyone) think that this statement is obviously false? > (Negate it and see if that sounds right). > > Why is it that people get so heated about criticism of AI that > they stoop to name-calling rather than addressing the points made? > (That question has probably also been asked by Dreyfus). > > Peter Ladkin I DID address the issue. I deleted your reference because reproducing entire postings leads to extremely large postings. But I am addressing his argument about areas of human experience which supposedly will never be amenable to machine implementation. My whole point, which I thought was rather obvious, is that he conjures up examples which are poorly thought out, and experiments which are poorly executed. Thus, his entire analysis is worthless to any investigators in the field. I would welcome any analysis which would point out areas which I should not waste time investigating. I receive this sort of input occasionally, in the form of "it is better to investigate this than that, for this reason" and this is very helpful. I certainly don't love wasting time looking at dead ends. If Dreyfus' work were carefully constructed, it could be very valuable. But all I see when I read his stuff is vague hypotheses, backed up with bad research. So I am not calling him names. I am characterizing his research, and therefore AM addressing the issue. Paul Benjamin ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Feb 86 18:21:59 PST From: albert@kim.berkeley.edu (Anthony Albert) Reply-to: albert@kim.berkeley.edu (Anthony Albert) Subject: Re: Technology Review article In article <8602110348.2860@redwood.UUCP>, ucdavis!lll-crg!amdcad!amd!hplabs! fortune!redwood!rpw3@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Rob Warnock) writes: > > >+ >| The [Technology Review] article was written by the Dreyfuss brothers, who >| claim... that people do not learn to ride a bike by being told how to do >| it, but by a trial and error method that isn't represented symbolically. >+ > >Hmmm... Something for these guys to look at is Seymour Papert's work >in teaching >such skills as bicycle riding, juggling, etc. by *verbal* and *written* means. >That's not to say that some trial-and-error practice is not needed, but that >there is a lot more that can be done analytically than is commonly assumed. The Dreyfuses (?) understand that learning can occur analytically and consciously at first. But in the stages from beginner to expert, the actions become less and less conscious. I imagine Mr. Warnock's juggling (mentioned further on in the article) followed the same path; when practicing a skill, one doesn't think about it constantly, one lets it blend into the background. Anthony Albert ..!ucbvax!kim!albert albert@kim.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ********************