From: CSVPI 4-DEC-1984 04:39 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a023431; 4 Dec 84 3:11 EST Date: Mon 3 Dec 1984 21:17-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #170 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Tue, 4 Dec 84 04:35 EST AIList Digest Tuesday, 4 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 170 Today's Topics: Administrivia- Missing Digest #166 & Digest Sequence, AI Tools - Franz Lisp -> Common Lisp & Languages for AI, Knowledge Representation - OPS5 Disjunctions, Cognition - A Calculus of Elegence, Seminars - AI Architectures at TI (SMU) & Karmarkar's Algorithm (SU) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon 3 Dec 84 21:05:48-PST From: Ken Laws Subject: Missing Digest #166 I have reason to believe that digest V2 #166 did not make it out to several (many?) sites before it was mysteriously deleted from my system. Let me know if you need a remailing. The digest included Philosophy - Dialectics and Piaget, Logic Programming - Book Review, PhD Oral - Nonclausal Logic Programming, Seminar - Learning Theory and Natural Language (MIT), Conference - Logics of Programs It should have gone out Friday or Saturday (Nov. 30 or Dec. 1). -- Ken Laws ------------------------------ Date: Mon 3 Dec 84 20:49:45-PST From: Ken Laws Subject: Digest Sequence Usenet readers may have noticed that digest issues 167-169 are missing. These issues were sent only to Arpanet readers because they contained only messages from the net.ai discussion -- the ones since Oct. 23, when our gateway host went down. -- Ken Laws ------------------------------ Date: 30 Nov 1984 1219-EST From: Scott Fahlman Subject: Franz Lisp -> Common Lisp [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] A number of people around CMU and CGI have now successfully translated Franz Lisp programs into Common Lisp. In general, people seem to have little trouble moving big programs over, but people who have not yet done this are understandably apprehensive. If the people who have experience in this area want to send me a brief description of the things to look out for or that caused them trouble, I will try to merge these experiences into a short guide for people faced with this kind of task in the future. -- Scott ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Dec 84 08:15 EST From: D E Stevenson Subject: Languages for A. I. I would like to compile a list of all language systems which have been implemented / proposed for artificial intelligence purposes. I would appreciate lists, pointers, and vague recollections from anyone within the community. I will be glad to forward any resulting document. steve (803) 656-3444 ------------------------------ Date: 2 Dec 1984 2124-PST (Sunday) From: ricks%ucbic@Berkeley (Rick L Spickelmier) Subject: OPS5 Disjunctions I have found the following to be a solution to disjunction in the type of problem you (neihart) have come up against. If you are trying to represent a pass-transistor with permutable terminals, just remove the permutable terminals from the pass-transistor working memory element and make seperate working memory elements for each permutable terminal, such as the following: (passtx ^name ^gate ) (terminal ^parent ^name ^type sd ^node ) (terminal ^parent ^name ^type sd ^node ) Then your rule can be: (p Dflipflop {(inv ^name ^input ^output ) } {(inv ^name ^input ^output ) } {(inv ^name ^input ^output ) } {(passtx ^name ^gate ) } {(terminal ^parent ^name ^type sd ^node ) } {(terminal ^parent ^name <> ^type sd ^node ) } {(passtx ^name ^gate ) } {(terminal ^parent ^name ^type sd ^node ) } {(terminal ^parent ^name <> ^type sd ^node ) } --> (make Dff ^name ^clock ^Q ^Qbar ) (remove ) (remove )) Note: I have run examples using the above and using a single working memory element for a pass-transistor with seperate rules for each allowable permutation - and in all cases I have tried, adding extra rules gives better performance than adding more working memory elements (but if you are interested in readability, the extra working memory element representation is better). Rick L Spickelmier (ricks@berkeley) Electronics Research Laborartory, UC Berkeley ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 84 1531 EST (Monday) From: Lee.Brownston@CMU-CS-A.ARPA Subject: OPS5 disjunction problem A better solution is to remove the sd values from the passtx working memory element. If the name fields of the passtx wme's contain unique values, then two sd children can be created which point to their common parent. (literalize passtx name ; a unique value gate) (literalize sd passtx ; the same value as the "name" field of the passtx parent value ) When the passtx is made, the two sd children are linked to it. --> ... (make passtx ^name ^gate ) (make sd ^passtx ^value ) (make sd ^passtx ^value ) ... Then it is easy to test the disjunction because the sd elements are unordered (except by time tag, which is not used in matching). (p Dflipflop (inv ^name ^input ^output ) (inv ^name ^input ^output ) (inv ^name ^input ^output ) (passtx ^name ^gate ) (sd ^passtx ^value ) ; is this where is to be bound? (sd ^passtx ^value { <> } ) (passtx ^name ^gate ) (sd ^passtx ^value ) (sd ^passtx ^value { <> } ) --> (make Dff ^name ^clock ^Q ^Qbar ) (remove 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) ) Might I take this opportunity to make a plug for a forthcoming book on OPS5? It is called "Programming Expert Systems in OPS5," and is to be published in mid-April by Addison-Wesley. The authors are Lee Brownston (CMU), Robert Farrell (Yale), Elaine Kant (CMU), and Nancy Martin (Wang Institute). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 29 Nov 84 11:37 EST From: Steven Gutfreund Subject: A calculus of elegence (re: kludge v2 #162) I found your definition of Kludge very interesting. In the sense you use it, it seems to be the antonym of Elegance (a term frequently heard in mathematical circles). The problem is I have never seen a precise definition of elegance. Would you like to try and produce a definition for it? 1. What is it about a representation schemas (symbolic/anologic) that lead mathematicians or programers to consider them to be elegant representations of a problem? 2. Does elegance extend beyond to domain of symbolic representations to what David Smith (Pygmallion) called Non-Fregean systems such as art (paintings)? Do we call this esthetics? 3. Is there a calculus of esthetics? Can we capture its properties in a formal system (axiomatic) or does it correspond to reasoning structures inside the brain (a dual of K-lines)? - Steven Gutfreund ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Dec 1984 01:06 EST From: MINSKY%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: A calculus of elegence (re: kludge v2 #162) Dear Steven, Mathematical elegance must be a lot of things; generally it includes economy and surprise: the sense of getting more from something than one expected. I don't believe it very often pays to "define" a commonsense word, because it includes too many unrelated things -- or ones which cannot be related except within some larger psychological theory. A sounder approach would be to define half a dozen influences which might contribute, and make separate theories of them. In Poincare's famous essay on unconscious mathematical creativity, he leaves open the question of how the unconscious mind decides when its mathematical efforts have produced a structure which might be worthy of the conscious mind's attention. In fact, I would say that, rather than try to define mathematical elegance, one would better spend the time refining a system which uses criteria of possible mathematical value -- e.g., Lenat's AM and Eurisko systems. Then, when we better understand a way to make a system make mathematical discoveries, we can return to speculate about how human minds do such things. As for a calculus of esthetics, that probably reflects even more varied cultural acquisitions. There was a whole book about this, in the 1920's I think, called "Esthetic Measure", by Gearge. D. Birkhoff, a great mathematician. Here are some of my views, from a page in my not-quite-finished new book. PAGE 47: STYLE Why do we like so many things which seem to have no earthly use? We often speak of this with mixtures of defensiveness and pride. "Art for Art's sake." "I find it aesthetically pleasing." "I just like it." "There's no accounting for it". "There's no accounting for" sounds like a guilty child who's been told to keep accounts. "I just like it" sounds like one is hiding reasons too unworthy to admit. Why do we take our refuge in such vague, defiant principles? Indeed, we @B{ought} to feel ashamed of doing things that have no use -- if it is written in our self-ideals that it is bad to squander time. However, there are practical reasons to maintain stylistic preferences. Here are some reasons why it makes sense to make choices which are empty in themselves, so long as they are based on predictable, coherent uniformities. SIMPLICITY: The legs of a chair work equally well if made square or round. Then, why do we tend to choose our furniture according to systematic style or fashions? Because they make it easier to understand whole scenes; you can more quickly see which things are similar. DISTRACTION: The purpose of a picture's frame is normally to circumscribe its boundary. Too much variety might distract viewers from the pictures themselves. Thus, the more easily the style of the frames can be identified -- even if by encrusting them with ornaments -- the frames themselves can be more easily ignored. CONVENTION: It makes no difference whether a single car drives on the left or on the right. But when there are many cars, they must do the same, one way or the other, or they'll crash. Societies need rules which make no sense at all for single individuals. It saves a lot of mental work, to make each choice the way you did before. To find out what to do, just use find the rule in memory. Strangely enough, this principle can be the most valuable, when the situation it applies to is the least critical, because of the following principle: FREDKIN'S PARADOX: The more equal seem the two alternatives, the harder it will be to choose -- yet the more equal they are, the less the choice matters. Then, the more time spent, the more time lost. It is no wonder that we find it hard to account for "taste" -- since, often, it depends on all the rules we use when ordinary reasons cancel out! Does this mean that Fashion, Style, and Art are all the same? No, only that they have the common quality that their diverse forms of sense and reason are further than usual from the surface of thought. This is why, when we use stylish ways to make decisions, we often feel a sense of being "free" from practicalities. Those decisions would seem more constrained, were we aware of how they're made. When should one give up reasoning and take resort to rules of style? Only when we're fairly sure that further thought will just waste time. What are those fleeting hints of guilt we feel for liking works of art? Perhaps they're how our minds remind themselves to not use rules, which we don't understand, too recklessly. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Dec 84 07:36:16 cst From: leff@smu (Laurence Leff) Subject: Seminar - AI Architectures at TI (SMU) Department of Computer Science and Engineering Seminar Southern Methodist University SPEAKER: Dr. Satish Thatte Computer Science Laboratory Group Texas Instruments Incorporated Dallas, Texas TOPIC: Computer Architectures for Artificial Intelligence TIME: 3:00-4:00 p.m., Wednesday, December 5, 1984 PLACE: 315 Science Information Center, SMU ABSTRACT: The seminar will cover the research on computer architecture for symbolic processing and artificial intelligence at Texas Instruments. Our work is concentrated on three major areas: memory system architecture, language and compiler technology, and symbolic processor design. The memory system research is aimed at developing a "uniform memory abstraction" that comprehends a very large, recoverable, garbage-collected, virtual memory system to support short-lived, as well as persistent objects. Such a memory system is expected to play a crucial role in supporting large, knowledge-intensive artificial intelligence applications. The language nad compiler technology is based on the language SCHEME, a powerful and elegant dialect of LISP. The processor design effort is based on using the Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) philosophy to implement a virtual machine that supports the SCHEME language, as well as the uniform memory abstraction. ------------------------------ Date: Sun 2 Dec 84 17:10:28-PST From: Andrei Broder Subject: Seminar - Karmarkar's Algorithm (SU) [Forwarded from the SRI bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] 12/6/84 - Irvin Lustig (OR Dept. - Stanford) "Karmarkar's Algorithm: Theory, Practice, and Unfinished Business" Recent articles in Science Magazine and the New York Times have brought to light a new algorithm for Linear Programming by N. Karmarkar. The excitement created by this discovery in the Operations Research and Computer Science communities is understandable, considering the spectacular nature of the reported results. In my talk, I will discuss the theoretical result of Karmarkar, some of the practical considerations of the algorithm, and how this algorithm is leading to new heuristics for Linear Programming. I will also explain how the result has not yet been shown to be practically efficient, even though fairly good results have been reported in the news media. Time and place: December 6, 12:30 pm in MJ352 (Bldg. 460) - Andrei Broder ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: COMSAT 7-DEC-1984 00:05 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a007386; 6 Dec 84 15:35 EST Date: Thu 6 Dec 1984 09:40-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #171 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Thu, 6 Dec 84 23:59 EST AIList Digest Thursday, 6 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 171 Today's Topics: Applications - MACSYMA, AI Tools - XLISP Source & Franz Lisp -> Common Lisp, Humor - Typagrophical Erorrs, AI News - Recent Articles, Algorithms - Sorting Malgorithm, Knowledge Representation - OPS5 Disjunctions, Seminars - Scheme Overview (Yale) & Principles of OBJ2 (MIT) & QUTE Functional Unification Language (IBM-SJ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Dec 84 13:52 CDT From: Joyce_Graham Subject: References to MACSYMA applications I am putting together a little pitch for the TI Journal on the usefulness of MACSYMA. What I would like are references to articles about projects that made use of MACSYMA. I would also welcome any folklore that may be floating around. Can anyone help me? Joyce Graham Texas Instruments Incorporated Post Box 801 M/S 8007 McKinney, TX 75069 from Arpanet - jgraham%ti-eg@csnet-relay from Csnet - jgraham@ti-eg ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Dec 84 14:46:02 PST From: Randy Schulz Subject: Wanted: xlisp source I'd like to find out how to get the source for version 1.2 of xlisp. I'll be using it on a Macintosh, and compiling it with the Manx C compiler. If there are multiple versions of the source, I'd like to get the one most appropriate to that environment. Thanx in advance. Randy Schulz Locus Computing Corp. lcc!randy@ucla-cs trwrb!lcc!randy {trwspp,ucivax}!ucla-va!ucla-cs!lcc!randy {ihnpr,randvax,sdcrdcf,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!lcc!randy ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Dec 1984 13:22 EST From: "Scott E. Fahlman" Subject: Franz Lisp -> Common Lisp Since my post appeared on this list (and thus received wider circulation than I had really intended) I've had a number of requests for the Franz Lisp to Common Lisp Conversion Guide. When and if this document (or any other conversion guide) is available, I'll put it in some place easily accessible via arpanet and will send a pointer to AIList. Don't hold your breath, however. So far, the response from people who have done conversions is underwhelming, and while I would like to see this document come into being, I do not have the time to go re-learn Franz and gain the relevant conversion experience myself. All I can say at present is that the people who have done Franz to Common Lisp conversions have reported very little trouble. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Dec 84 9:42:45 EST From: Pete Bradford (CSD UK) Subject: Typagrophical Erorrs. Those who, like me, enjoyed the Palm Springs Desert Sun paragraph which was reprinted in the New Yorker would enjoy an article in the just published Winter edition of the British periodical, Punch. The article is entitled 'Wernit'. I cannot possibly describe it (is this a deficiency of the English language?!), but Punch is widely available over here, at better bookshops and in most college libraries. Bear in mind when reading it that the computer referred to belongs to the British newspaper 'The Guardian', and that this paper is notorious for its typos. Good reading, PJB ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Dec 84 06:03:54 cst From: leff@smu (Laurence Leff) Subject: AI News Electronics Week, November 19, 1984 ICOT Details Its Progress. Reports on work done on prolog machines, a new logic language called Mandala. page 20 IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Sept 1984, Volume SE-10, No 5 Reusability Through Program Transformations - discusses using a transformation-based system to convert a lisp program to Fortran. page 589 Empirical Studies of Programming Knowledge. - this is a cognitive science study on the use of plans by experts and novice programmers. Should be of interest to those following the Plan Calculus work from MIT. page 595 IEEE Computer October 1984, Volume 17 1984 This is their Centennial Issue. The articles here are summaries of various divisions of computer research and practice. Relevant articles are "Knowledge-Based Expert Systems" by Frederick Hayes-Roth, Robotics by John F. Jarivis, Computing in Medicine by K. Preston Jr. et. al. and Speech Processing by Harold Andrews IEEE Spectrum December 1984, A one column article on Do What I Mean facilities. page 29 Electronics Week November 26, 1984, page 50: Article on venture between Isis Systems Ltd and Imperial Chemical Industries to market expert systems. Infoworld November 12, 1984 page 36-41 Article on marketing natural language interfaces for microcomputers. Datamation, November 1 1984 Page 10, the following sentence was found in their Look Ahead section: "TRW, the big defense contractor, is looking for some 500 symbolic processors (Lisp Machines, that is) for use in a global weather mapping application. "The Overselling of Expert Ssytems" by Gary R. Martins page 76 Rather scathing attack on AI. If you enjoyed Drew McDermott's Artificial Intelligence meets Natural Stupidity, you should read this one too. "The Blossoming of European AI" by Paul Tate page 85 discusses work by Imperial Chemical Industries, Elf Aquitaine,Schlumberger and Framentec (set up by Teknowledge). Sinclair has announced a Prolog for one of its home machines and expects to have expert system products out for it soon. Also Expert System Internationals has announced ES/P Advisor for $1300.00 (runs on 16 bit micros). Also has discussions of management reactions to AI and work done on along the lines of R/1. "AI and software Engineering" by Robert Kowalski page 92 Talks about using AI techniques to handle a program to work with the British Naturalization Act. Presents AI as a technique like decision tables, dataflow diagrams to improve productivity in general software development, e.g. business sytems. Page 163: review of about 10 books on AI. Electronic Week, November 5, 1984 page 24 Discusses DARPA automated vehicle effort. Electronics Week, December 3, 1984. Cautiously Optimistic Tone Set for Fifth Generation Page 57-63 (Note that this is a six page article.) Discussed progress of Japanese ICOT effort. In the words of Susan Gerhart who was quoted in the article, "The single thing that impresses me the most did not really come out clearly at the conference but did at the ICOT open-house demonstration the next week; it was that so much new stuff was all working together -- new hardware, basic software, and application demos--all of it based on logic programming." Note that the *operating system* for the new system is written in a logic programming language called KL1. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Dec 84 1806 EST (Wednesday) From: Lee.Brownston@CMU-CS-A.ARPA Subject: A baaaadalgorithm for sorting One way to make a sort of n items very expensive is to compute the set of all n! permutations of the n items and map each permutation onto its Godel number. (One can find opportunities to dawdle in generating primes, too.) Finding the sorted permutation is equivalent to finding the minimum or maximum Godel number if the Godelization preserved order. This can be accomplished by sorting the Godel numbers. Thus, the problem of sorting n items has been "reduced" to that of permuting, Godelizing, and sorting n! integers. The recursion cannot be infinite, of course, but may stop as soon as the use of resources exceeds that of some turkey who thinks he has come up with a slower sort. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1984 0942-PST (Tuesday) From: ricks%ucbic@Berkeley (Rick L Spickelmier) Subject: More on OPS5 Disjunctions The idea of separating the 'sd' field from the 'passtx' element and creating separate elements for each 'sd' were presented in two submissions (ricks%ucbic@berkeley and Lee.Brownston@CMU-CS-A). I would like to point out a difference that looks like it is important in the original application (of neihart). Lee's submission distinguished the two 'sd' elements by making sure they were not connected to the same node (the 'value' attribute). In this particular example it does not make sense to tie the two 'sd's together, but in general, you may want to connect two or more of these type of terminals (from a single element) to the same node (mosfets used as capacitors have their source and drain connected together, and in TTL design, nand gates are occassionally used as inverters by tying their inputs together). The above argument is why I put unique tags on each 'sd' working memory element so this could be used to distinguish them, and thus allowing them to be tied to the same node. Rick Spickelmier (ricks@berkeley) Electronics Research Laboratory, UC Berkeley ------------------------------ Date: 3 Dec 1984 16:26 EST (Mon) From: "Daniel S. Weld" Subject: Seminar - Scheme Overview (Yale) [Forwarded from the MIT bboard by SASW@MIT-MC.] AI Revolving Seminar An Overview of Yale Scheme Jonathan Rees Wednesday 12/5/84 4:00pm 8th floor playroom Yale Scheme, also known as T, was developed over the past three years by the Yale Computer Science Facility. It is being used as a production Lisp system at Yale, UCLA, and elsewhere. It features a compiler which generates native VAX and MC68000 code and compiles closure-intensive code efficiently enough that closures may be used in preference to record structures for many applications which are space- or time-critical. I will discuss how the language and implementation work and how T is different from other Scheme and Lisp systems, and give a list of what I consider to be unsolved problems in the design of Scheme-like languages. ------------------------------ Date: 4 Dec 1984 1105-EST From: ALR at MIT-XX Subject: Seminar - Principles of OBJ2 (MIT) [Forwarded from the MIT bboard by SASW@MIT-MC.] "Principles of OBJ2" Jean Pierre Jouannaud University of Nancy (France) and SRI Friday, December 7, 1984 Refreshments at 3:00 pm, talk at 3:15 pm Room NE43-453 OBJ2 is an object-oriented language with an underlying formal semantics based on equational logic and an operational semantics based on rewrite rules. Key OBJ2 principles are: 1. Use of parameterized modules (Objects and Theories). Objects encapsulate executable code (e.g. rewrite rules), whereas Theories encapsulate assertions that may be nonexecutable (e.g. first order formulae). 2. Specification of interface requirements for parameters (Views). 3. Use of Module Expressions for creating complex combinations of modules. 4. Use of subsorts to support: a simple yet powerful form of polymorphism (overloading). partially defined operations (use of "sort-constraint"). a simple yet powerful and automatic form of error-recovery. 5. Use of user defined "built-ins", e.g. low level data types described in the implementation language itself, e.g. MACLISP. "Built-ins" are first class objects, e.g. all other construct apply to them, including subsort definitions. We will discuss these principles by means of examples of OBJ specifications and point out the main implementation issues. HOST: Prof. Guttag ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Dec 84 16:59:47 PST From: IBM San Jose Research Laboratory Calendar Subject: Seminar - QUTE Functional Unification Language (IBM-SJ) [Forwarded from the SRI bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] IBM San Jose Research Lab 5600 Cottle Road San Jose, CA 95193 Mon., Dec. 10 Computer Science Seminar 10:30 A.M. QUTE: A FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE BASED ON UNIFICATION Aud. B A new programming language called Qute is introduced. Qute is a functional programming language which permits parallel evaluation. While most functional programming languages use pattern matching as basic variable-value binding mechanism, Qute uses unification as its binding mechanism. Since unification is bidirectional, as opposed to pattern match which is unidirectional, Qute becomes a more powerful functional programming language than most of existing functional languages. This approach enables the natural unification of logic programming language and functional programming language. In Qute it is possible to write a program which is very much like one written in conventional logic programming language, say, Prolog. At the same time, it is possible to write a Qute program which looks like an ML (which is a functional language) program. A Qute program can be evaluated in parallel (and-parallelism) and the same result is obtained irrespective of the particular order of evaluation. This is guaranteed by the Church-Rosser property enjoyed by the evaluation algorithm. M. Sato, Kyoto University Host: J. Halpern ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: COMSAT 7-DEC-1984 00:21 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a008703; 6 Dec 84 20:31 EST Date: Thu 6 Dec 1984 13:43-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #172 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 7 Dec 84 00:05 EST AIList Digest Friday, 7 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 172 Today's Topics: Linguistics - Indonesian & Aymara' & Translation & Deficiencies Conference - Theoretical Approaches to Natural Language Understanding ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 3 Dec 84 08:48 PST From: Newman.pasa@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Indonesian In reply to the note from rob@ptsfa about "Indonesian". Just one question in regard to your note about "Indonesian". Do you mean that all dialects spoken in Indonesia have the features that you mention? Or do you mean that the official language of Indonesia (called Bahasa Indonesia I believe) has these features? Could you be more specific? It has been many years since I lived in Indonesia, and I never really learned enough of the language to have an opinion about your assertions, but I do know that there are many languages spoken in Indonesia, and that what you say may be true of any number of these languages. >>Dave ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 Dec 84 20:20:49 pst From: weeks%ucbpopuli.CC@Berkeley (Harry Weeks) Subject: Andean interlingua monograph. Some mention has been made on this list recently of Aymara' (that is an accent mark), an Andean language purportedly used successfully by Iva'n Guzma'n de Rojas of La Paz, Bolivia, as an interlingua for machine translation. An article appears in today's New York Times (Saturday, December 1) on page 4. Probably of most interest to those involved in the interlingua debate will be a reference to a 150 page monograph by Mr. Guzma'n (no title given) published by the International Development Research Center in Ottawa. The article also mentions that Mr. Guzma'n uses ``three-valued formulas, following the Polish scientist Jan L/ukasciewicz'' to represent the Aymara' logic. The remainder of the article seems to largely repeat what has previously been cited on this list from articles in the Los Angeles Times. -- Harry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Dec 84 9:16:12 EST From: Pete Bradford (CSD UK) Subject: Translation. The October 1 Electronic News article on Japanese-English translation reminds me......... A young guy in the Pentagon devised this remarkable program to translate English into Russian, and vice-versa. The Secretary of State for Defense was to visit his office and be given a demonstration of the system. On the arrival of the 'big-wig', our hero asked him if he had a phrase he would like translated. "What about 'The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak'?" asked the top man. This phrase was duly typed in, and after much flashing of lights etc, the Russian translation appeared on the screen. This was smugly read out to the Secretary of State who pointed out, rather sheepishly, that he did not speak Russian and was in no position to judge the quality of the translation. Things were about to break up in a very unsatisfactory and embarrassing manner when our hero yelled "I've got it! I'll just reverse the polarity of the program and feed back the phrase it just came up with!". "Brilliant!" gulped his Director, recovering just sufficiently from his recent apoplexy to enable him to talk again, "Let's do that.". The Russian phrase was then fed back into the machine which had now been switched into the Russian-English mode, and the small crowd waited expectantly while more lights flashed and blinked. They say that the Director is still recovering in George Washington Hospital and our hero has, of course, given up all thoughts of a successful carreer in the Defense Department. How was he to know the program would play such a dirty trick on him. It certainly performed the translation it had been asked to do, but it did seem too loose or colloquial a translation - 'The whisky's OK, but the meat's lousy!.... ------------------------------ Date: Monday, 03 Dec 84 10:46:51 EST From: thompson (ross thompson) @ cmu-psy-a Subject: Language deficiencies (or wife beating) There was a mention earlier on this bboard that it is often difficult to answer questions, because there is an implication which is not true contained in the question. The example given was the question "Do you persist in your lies?" A more well known example of the same phenomenon is the classic "Have you stopped beating your wife?" I don't know a lot about eastern religions, and I am sure I will be shot down in flames for going out on a limb, but I believe that Zen provides us with at least one answer to this problem. If, in response to a question, you reply "Mu," then you have ``unasked'' the question. The situation in which you do this is precisely what is described above. The interesting thing about this (to me) is not what word they chose, but the fact that there is an excepted linguistic practice among these people for dealing with what many people around here would call a ``deficiency.'' Ross Thompson ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Dec 84 10:00:59 EST From: Bruce Nevin Subject: Communication A General Semanticist named Harrington Returned from his colloquy swearing ten Natives could count Only half the amount Any properly trained investigator could while ignoring the fact that it was not really counting that they were doing, but rhyming. Ancient chestnut from anthropological lingustics: Anthropologist (pointing): What's that? Native: Anthropologist (pointing again): And what's that? Native: (This goes on for a while.) Anthropologist: You see, they have only the word for all these things, and make up for their deficient vocabulary by grunts and gestures. (In fairness, this combines the (true) `finger' story with the persistent canard about a `primitive language with grunts and gestures'.) Opinion: language, properly speaking, is principally a means of transmitting information. It happens to be used together with representational and gestural systems (including the gestural system we know as intonation and inflection) as a means of communicating a great deal more than (and sometimes contrary to) the bare-bones information that it transmits. See e.g. Z. S. Harris, Mathematical Structures of Language, esp. ch 2 `Properties of language relevant to a mathematical formulation'. (By `contrary to' I refer to irony and the like. Though I know no Dutch, I bet there are instances where speakers say something like `That must have been a gezellig meeting!', referring to e.g. a collection of `strange bedfellows' brought together by political expedience.) Much of this discussion confuses linguistic competence with communicative competence. Communicative competence boils down mostly to skills in engaging others in a willing desire to communicate and understand. I have seen an affable extrovert on a Greek train communicate quite well with speakers of at least three languages of which he knew perhaps two words each. (My companion identified Hungarian and Slovenian, I recognized German.) A gezellig time was had by all, proof positive of satisfactory communication (whether or not much information is transmitted), and liquor played a miniscule role. I have seen fluent speakers of the same dialect of English unable even to transmit information to one another, because of their abject failure to communicate. And so have you. Stereotypically, right-limbic communicative skills are best developed and exemplified by women in western cultures, and by Japanese and Chinese cultures in our reluctantly waning ethnocentricity. What we call `small talk' (software aside). (Is there any AI work miming right-cerebral and right-limbic functions, other than visual pattern perception?) An important part of `engaging others in a willing desire to communicate and understand' is the range of what I call gestures of solidarity-- affirming that we are comembers of the same gezellig in-group. Jargon plays a central role, especially in an electronic-mail environment. Denigration of outsiders is felt necessary when the boundaries have not yet been clearly defined and the door so to speak is not yet shut or when an unwelcome interloper is suspected. There are many unconscious and semiconscious identifiers of class, ethnos, region, and so on in the range of vocabulary choice and pronunciation (dialect), application of standard or nonstandard grammatical rules (to call them standard and nonstandard of course begs the sociological question), shared references (`remember the old man who bought licorice there') and so on. (Fade to track of Frank Sinatra crooning `Gezelligheid is made of this'. Bring up following quote from Harris op. cit. 216: . . . the very simplicity of this system, which surprisingly enough seems to suffice for language, makes it clear that no matter how interdependent language and thought may be, they cannot be identical. It is not reasonable to believe that thought has the structural simplicity and the recursive enumerability which we see in language. So that language structure appears rather as a particular system, satisfying the conditions of [the chapter cited above], . . . which is undoubtedly necessary for any thoughts other than simple or impressionistic ones, but which may in part be a rather rigid channel for thought.) Bruce Nevin, bn@bbncch ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Dec 84 15:59:27 EST From: Bruce Nevin Subject: re: saying the unsayable > Languages are not differentiated on the basis of what is > possible or impossible to say, but on the basis of what > is easier or harder to say. --Larry Wall (V2 #167) My understanding of tense morphemes is that they have the same semantic relation to adverbs of time that pronouns and classifier nouns have to nouns: having said the adverb, the tense morpheme is obligatory; having said the tense morpheme, certain non-specific adverbs (`in the future', `in the past') need no longer be said. But whether a given language has a particular tense morpheme or not, the equivalent information about temporal relationships may be expressed with adverbs of time or conjunctions (`before', `after'). (Cf. Harris, A Grammar of English on Mathematical Principles, 265-79.) I don't think even Whorf claimed that Hopi lacked all adverbs of time and temporal conjunctions. Achumawi, a Hokan language of northern California on which I have done some work, has a dual number, like Classical Greek. The dual is obligatory whenever referring to a pair of something. Having said the dual suffix, the actual noun pair is almost always tacit. The dual is also obligatory in direct address to one's mother-in-law (if a man) or father-in-law (if a woman), and also in certain religious invocations and prayers. A whole range of nuance expressing social relationships and attitudes is thereby easy to express in Achumawi and awkward in English. But the `objective information' is transmitted in a pretty obvious way, even in English. Sometimes, the `objective information' transmitted is that the speaker is referring to a pair; sometimes, the `objective information' is that the speaker affirms a certain special deference with respect to the intended audience. Irony and the like can complicate this further. In each case, the dual suffix is an obligatory choice given presence of certain explicit constructions; and given the presence of the dual suffix those constructions need no longer be explicitly said and are instead tacitly understood. Honorifics in Japanese present a rich field for issues of this sort. Indeed, every language abounds with reductions of explicit constructions to concise, nuance-laden forms. Translating from a nuance-laden reduced form to an explicit, spelled-out, fully explanatory form always loses the impact that the reduced form has on a native speaker. Closely analogous to translating a joke. Which is why `getting' native humor is such an excellent test of fluency. (For many years, anthropologists speculated whether or not American Indians joked! My experience suggests they probably were the frequent butts of deadpan setups and putons.) Ross recently proposed differentiating languages along a Macluhanesque `hot/cool' spectrum according to how easy or difficult it is to recover tacit information from under pronominal references; an article in the last issue of Linguistic Inquiry reviews and extends this work. (Sorry, I don't have either reference at hand.) Bruce Nevin, bn@bbncch ------------------------------ Date: Tue 27 Nov 84 11:10:47-PST From: ISRAEL@SRI-AI.ARPA Subject: Conference - Theoretical Approaches to Natural Language Understanding CALL FOR PAPERS WORKSHOP ON Theoretical Approaches to Natural Language Understanding Dalhousie Univeristy Halifax, Nova Scotia 28-30 May, 1985 General Chairperson: Richard Rosenberg, Mathematics Department, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S. B3H 4H8 Program Chairperson: Nick Cercone, Computing Science Dept., Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6 Theoretical Approaches to Natural Language Understanding is intended to bring together active researchers in Computational Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Philosophy, and Cognitive Science to discuss/hear invited talks, papers, and positions relating to some of the 'hot' issues regarding the current state of natural language understanding. The three areas chosen for discussion are aspects of grammars, aspects of semantics/pragmatics, and knowledge representation. In each of these, current methodologies will be considered: for grammars - theoretical developments, especially generalized phrase structure grammars and logic-based meta-grammars; for semantics - situation semantics and Montague semantics; for knowledge representation - logical systems and special purpose inference systems. Papers are solicited on topics in any of the areas mentioned above. You are invited to submit four copies of a paper (double-spaced, maximum 4000 words) to the program chairman: Nick Cercone, before 12 January, 1985. Authors will be notified of acceptances by 27 February. Accepted papers, typed on special forms, will be due 30 March 1985 and should be sent to the program chairman. To make referring possible it is important that the abstract summarize the novel ideas, contain enough information about the scope of the work, and include comparisons to the relevant literature. Accepted papers will appear in the Proceedings; those papers so recommended by the reviewers will be considered for inclusion in a speacial issue of Computational Intelligence, an international Artificial Intelligence journal published by the National Research Council of Canada. Presentation of papers at the Workshop will be at the discretion of the program/organizing committee in order to maintain the focus and workshop flavor of this meeting. Information concerning local arrangements will be available from the general chairman: Richard Rosenberg. Proceedings will be distributed at the workshop and subsequently available for purchase. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: CSVPI 8-DEC-1984 04:31 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a016417; 8 Dec 84 2:34 EST Date: Fri 7 Dec 1984 22:15-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #173 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Sat, 8 Dec 84 04:28 EST AIList Digest Saturday, 8 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 173 Today's Topics: Journals - LISP Papers & Computational Intelligence, Brain Theory - Caenorhabditis Elegans, Cognition - Infant Amnesia & PBS and The Brain, Seminars - Speech & Language & Memory & Math Representation (CSLI), Conference - Intelligent Systems and Machines ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri 7 Dec 84 15:16:31-PST From: Michael Georgeff Subject: Journals for LISP papers I wish to submit a paper on a new and efficient method for implementing funargs in LISP (currently an SRI Tech Note) to an appropriate journal. Anyone know of any GOOD journal that publishes papers on programming languages and implementations?? Michael Georgeff. ------------------------------ Date: Thu 6 Dec 84 16:58:08-PST From: C.S./Math Library Subject: Computational Intelligence--New Journal Computational Intelligence/Intelligence Informatique is a new journal which will publish in English/French high-quality original theoretical or experimental research in computational (aritificial) intelligence. The editors are Nick Cercone/Simon Fraser University and Gordon McCalla/Univer. of Saskatchewan. Editorial board includes L. Bolc, A. Mackworth, A. Ortony, R. Perrault, E. Sandewall, A. Sloman, n. Sridharan, D. Wilkins etc. Subscription rates: U.S. $85 institutional, $47 personal. It will be a quarterly with the first issue to be available February 1985. It will be published by the National Research Council of Canada and sponsored by the Canadian Society for Computational studies of intelligence. For more information: Distribution, R-88 (Computational Intelligence), National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A OR6. Special rates for members of Canadian Societies. Manuscripts should be addressed to the editors, Computational Intelligence, Computing Science Department, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, V5A 1S6. I will be ordering this title for the Math/CS Library. [...] Harry Llull ------------------------------ Date: Thu 6 Dec 84 12:01:07-CST From: ICS.DEKEN@UTEXAS-20.ARPA Subject: brains, kludges, and elegance The most substantial evidence of brain kludgery or lack thereof curiously resides in the structure (completely mapped) of a nematode named ... "elegant." Caenorhabditis elegans has 302 neurons of 118 different types, which make about 8000 synapses in total (each process synapses with about 50% of its neighbors). The lineage of every one of these cells is known, and the process by which neurological structures are formed may well seem, to a computer scientist, a kludge. Bilateral symmetry is not produced, for example, in the "logical" mirror-image development of a single precursor. The word "kludge," though, carries a pejorative connotation which seems inappropriate - there are multiple forces and priorities at work. (One might similarly feel that "kludge" is not the right word to describe democracy relative to totalitarianism.) A better word, which may mean something to biologists and others outside the hacker's ken, might be "fossiliferous," used to describe any system (program or biological organism) which carries along the baggage of its own trial-and-error evolution. As Sulston, White, Thomson, and Schierenberg put it: "... the perverse assignments, the cell deaths, the long-range migrations - all the features which could, it seems, be eliminated from a more efficient design - are so many developmental fossils." (There is a three-part series on C. elegans in Science of 22 Jun, 6 Jul, and 13 Jul). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Dec 1984 01:59 EST From: MINSKY%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Infant Amnesia V2 #165 The general evidence for infant memories is pretty poor. For one thing, as Ken Laws points out, there is something mighty suspicious about those handfuls of memories each person claims. In psychiatry some of these are called "screen memories". A very common feature is to remember some scene, sort of "eidetically" -- but on questions, the subject very often sees itself right in the center of the stage! Since this is impossible, obviously, the conclusion is that the memory is a construct. What's worse, with careful questioning, one usually finds that the memory has indeed been rehearsed, as Ken remarks, perhaps periodically. Presumably it has been reconstructed in the process, too -- and can hardly be called a memory, but rather, an elaborated theory or fantasy. Finally, even more careful questioning is revealing: how do you know that this was when you were three years old? Oh, I'm sure of it. It was the day my dog was run over. An innocent clue like that most likely points to an incident of Freudian magnitude; a loss or death, itself rehearsed perhaps for months, and then, unconsciously, for all the rest of one's life. In any case it is silly to haggle over the sharpness of the cutoff of infantile amnesia. I like theories like this: our experience is first encoded in rather stupid ways; a square is seen as a line attached to another line attached to another line, etc. Like an early assembly-language. Later, a square is represented as "closed path of equal lines" and, later, orthognal pairs of parallels, etc. -- going to Fortrams to Pascals to LOGs to SMALLTalks to who-knows-what. The representatins and their interpreters grow more sophisticated, and those first machine-languages of infancy just can't be always upwards-compatible. So, even if those early memories were not, in fact, entirely ever lost, they're doomed to become unintelligible, eventually. ------------------------------ Date: 1 Dec 1984 20:03:35 EST From: HARTUNG@USC-ISI.ARPA Subject: PBS & The Brain Hello, I too have been watching the PBS series on the brain. And while I find it to be remarkably up to date, I do have a concern about it. This is a concern not just for this series but for many physiological explanations of experiential phenomena presented to lay audiences. When statements are made that such and such an area of the brain is responsible for some known effect, or that damage to location X results in some new and peculiar observed behavior, these statements are (I fear) taken in a way they are not meant to be. The lay audience has a different frame of reference than a psychologist or neurophysiologist. Scientists studying brain functions view their subjects as complex models involving the interaction of a variety of known components: neurotransmiters; ganglia; axon projections; structures, etc. The majority of the audiance has only limited exposure to these objects and concepts and not enough time to really develop a similar framework to view all this new knowledge in. Instead I believe they do what people usually do when under- standing new material and that is relate it to what they already know. What people already know is that their brain is responsible for their subjective awareness of the world. And as a result of the attempt to integrate knowledge about the brain with the fact that it is the seat of subjective experience there is a strong possibility that people will believe that these explanations of brain functioning are in fact explanations of how it is that they have an experiential component to their lives. Such physiological explanations will probably never supply the answer to the question of how it is that we have the kind of experience of things that we do. For good argument on this point I refer you to Nagel's article in the Oct. '74 Philsophical Review "What is it like to be a bat?". But, lay audiences are rarely if ever informed of this. Another point frequently skipped in presenting brain physiology to lay audiences is the great importance of subjective experience in the functioning of cognition. (See Natsoulas, T. Residual Subjectivity. American Psychologist March 1978.) Indeed subjectivity is so inseparable from cognition that it raises serious questions about the capacity of digital machines to perform the full range of human abilities, given that such digital machines may not be able to achieve a subjective perspective (Searle, J. Minds, Brains, and Programs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Vol. 3, No. 3). Arguments concerning the mind brain problem have even come to doubt the capacity of present scientific approaches to the study of mental phenomena and their relationship to physical phenomena to have any success (Fodor, J.A. Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive psychology. Behavioral and Brain Sciences Vol. 3 No. 3). I assume that the AI-LIST audience is aware of details of these arguments. The television audience mostly is not. I understand the reluctance of television producers to include arguments as abstract and difficult as those on the mind-brain problem. Not to mention the fact that certain religious groups find them upsetting. However, I feel it is important for us who are scientists, to encourage people consulting us about presentations they would make to lay people, to provide the broadest possible context for our arguments, and always to remember who our audience is and how different their perspective may be. Michael A. Moran Lockheed Advanced Software Laboratory address HARTUNG@USC-ISI ------------------------------ Date: Wed 5 Dec 84 21:28:17-PST From: Dikran Karagueuzian Subject: Seminars - Speech & Language & Memory & Math Representation (CSLI) [Excerpted from the CSLI Newsletter by Laws@SRI-AI.] ABSTRACT OF NEXT WEEK'S SEMINAR ``A Generalized Framework for Speech Recognition'' This talk will describe a framework for speaker-independent, large-vocabulary and/or continuous speech recognition being developed at Schlumberger (Fairchild). The framework consists of three components: 1) a finite-state pronunciation network which models relevant acoustic-phonetic events in the recognition vocabulary; 2) a set of generalized acoustic pattern matchers; and 3) an optimal search strategy based on a dynamic programming algorithm. The framework is designed to accommodate a variety of (typically disparate) approaches to the speech recognition problem, including spectral template matching, acoustic-phonetic feature extraction and lexical pruning based on broad-category segmentation. A working system developed within this framework and tailored to the digits vocabulary will also be described. The system achieves high recognition accuracy on a corpus spoken by approximately 250 talkers from 22 ``dialect groups'' within the continental United States. ---Marcia Bush ____________ ABSTRACT OF NEXT WEEK'S COLLOQUIUM ``Data Semantics'' Abstract: There is a growing agreement of opinion that several semantic phenomena can only be adequately dealt with in a theory which takes partiality seriously, a theory of partial objects. There is no agreement about what these partial objects are; for instance, whether they represent ``pieces of the world'' or ``states of partial information about the world.'' Yet, the choice of the perspective determines in large part the potential of the theory. I will discuss various aspects of Data Semantics, a theory being developed by Frank Veltman and me, which takes the second perspective as basic: the semantic behavior of several types of expressions can best be understood if we take them to relate to our lack of information, and regard them as patterns on how information can grow. I will argue that problems concerning quantification and equality force us to distinguish between different kinds of partial objects. ---Fred Landman F1 (AND F3) PROJECT MEETING Title: Self-propagating Search of Memory Speaker: Pentti Kanerva Time/Date: Tuesday, December 11, 3:15 p.m. Place: Ventura Seminar Room Abstract: Human memory has been compared to a film library that is indexed by the contents of the film strips stored in it. How might one construct a computer memory that would allow the computer (a robot) to recognize patterns and to recall sequences the way humans do? The model presented is a simple generalization of the conventional random-access memory of a computer. However, it differs from it in that (1) the address space is very large (e.g., 1,000-bit addresses), (2) only a small number of physical locations are needed to realize the memory, (3) a pattern is stored by adding it into a SET of locations, and (4) a pattern is retrieved by POOLING the contents of a set of locations. Patterns (e.g., of 1,000 bits) are stored in the memory (the memory locations are 1,000 bits wide) and they are also used to address the memory. From such a memory it is possible to retrieve previously stored patterns by approximate retrieval cues--thus, the memory is sensitive to similarities. By storing a sequence of patterns as a linked list, it is possible to index into any part of any "film strip" and to follow the strip from that point on (recalling a sequence). ____________ AREA C MEETING Topic: Theories of variable types for mathematical practice, with computational interpretations Speaker: Solomon Feferman, Depts. of Mathematics and Philosophy Time/Date: 1:30-3:30 p.m., Wednesday, December 12 Place: Conference Room, Ventura Hall Abstract: A new class of formal systems is set up with the following characteristics: 1) Significant portions of current mathematical practice (such as in algebra and analysis) can be formalized naturally within them. 2) The systems have standard set-theoretical interpretations. 3) They also have direct computational interpretations, in which all functions are partial recursive. 4) The proof-theoretical strengths of these systems are surprisingly weak (e.g. one is of strength Peano arithmetic). Roughly speaking, these are axiomatic theories of partial functions and classes. The latter serve as types for elements and functions, but they may be variable (or "abstract") as well as constant. In addition, an element may fall under many types ("polymorphism"). Nevertheless, a form of typed lambda calculus can be set up to define functions. The result 3) gets around some of the problems that have been met with the interpretation of the polymorphic lambda calculus in recent literature on abstract data types. Its proof requires a new generalization of the First Recursion Theorem, which may have independent interest. The result 4) is of philosophical interest, since it undermines arguments for impredicative principles on the grounds of necessity for mathematics (and, in turn, for physics). There are simple extensions of these theories, not meeting condition 2), in which there is a type of all types, so that operations on types appear simply as special kinds of functions. NL1 MEETING Topic: ``Association with Focus'' Speaker: Mats Rooth Time/Date: 2 p.m., Friday, December 7 Place: Trailer Seminar Room Note: The content will overlap with but be non-identical to the presentation the speaker gave in the intonation seminar. Abstract: In the context of adverbs of quantification, conditionals, and ``only,'' focus can have truth conditional significance. Suppose Mary introduced Bill and Tom to Sue and performed no other introductions. Then ``Mary only introduced Bill to SUE'' is true, while ``Mary only introduced BILL to Sue'' is false. Similarly, ``MARY always takes Sue to the movies'' and ``Mary always takes SUE to the movies'' have different truth conditions. My general claim is that focus influences truth conditions indirectly: the semantics of the constructions in question involve contextual parameters, typically unspecified domains of quantification, which are fixed by a focus-influenced component of meaning. This idea is executed in a Montague grammar framework. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Dec 84 10:36:07 EST From: Morton A Hirschberg Subject: Conference - Intelligent Systems and Machines CALL FOR PAPERS 1985 Conference on Intelligent Systems and Machines Dates: April 23-24, 1985 Place: Oakland University Rochester, Michigan Technical papers reflecting both advances and applications in all aspects of intelligent systems and machines will be considered. Suggested topics include, but are not restricted to: Intelligent Robotics, Machine Intelligence, C3I, Adaptive Control and Estimation, Visual Perception and Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition and Image Processing, Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Intelligent Simulation Tools, Computer-Integrated Manufacturing Systems, Knowledge Representation, Expert Systems, Game Theory and Military Strategy, Interpretation of Multisensor Information, Automatic Message Understanding, Natural Language and Automatic Programming. Authors are requested to submit a 300-500 word abstract by January 31, 1985 to: Professor Nan K. Loh, Conference Chairman, (313)377-2222 Professor Christian Wagner, Technical Review Committee Chairman (313)377-2215 Center for Robotics and Advanced Automation School for Engineering and Computer Science Oakland University Rochester, Michigan 48063 The conference will be preceded by tutorials on AI and Robotics held 22 April. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: CSVPI 9-DEC-1984 03:50 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a020196; 9 Dec 84 1:26 EST Date: Sat 8 Dec 1984 17:25-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #174 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Sun, 9 Dec 84 03:46 EST AIList Digest Sunday, 9 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 174 Today's Topics: AI Tools - UNSW Prolog, Books - Pitman AI Series, Cognition - Childhood Memories, Expert Systems - Optical Disk Memories, Machine Translation - Folklore, Knowledge Representation - Nonverbal Meaning, Seminar - Reinforcement Learning (CMU) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 6 Dec 84 13:08:58 PST From: Adolfo Di-Mare Subject: UNSW Prolog Date: Mon 26 Nov 84 23:21:34-PST From: Michael A. Haberler Subject: UNSW Prolog interpreter To: info-ibmpc@USC-ISIB.ARPA I have ported the University of New South Wales Prolog interpreter to an IBM PC running MS-DOS 2.0. It implements all built-in predicates of the Unix version and can call your favorite editor or the command line inter- preter. UNSW Prolog is closely patterned after Prolog-10, but has no compiler. I got the permission to redistribute the interpreter from the author of the Unix version, Claude Sammut of UNSW. If you want to obtain a copy, sign the license which can be FTP'ed from [SIERRA]PROLOG.LICENSE, and send the license with 2 DSDD diskettes to the address below. Neither Claude nor I charge anything for it. Michael Haberler Computer Systems Laboratory ERL 403 Stanford University, Stanford CA 94305 (415) 497-9503 Adolfo /// ------------------------------ Date: Fri 7 Dec 84 17:32:57-EST From: SRIDHARAN@BBNG.ARPA Subject: Pitman AI series now a concrete reality! Many of you know that Derek Sleeman and myself are the two Main Editors for the Pitman AI research notes series. The series was conceived and developed over the past 18 months. Some of you also saw the Pitman booth at the AAAI-84 trade show. Finally, the series appears to have taken concrete reality. I have received the first "book" in the series. Another six books will be out within the month. THe first title is Perry Miller, A Critiquing Approach to Expert Computer Advice: ATTENDING. The other titles are listed below. Paul Cohen, Heuristic Reasoning about uncertainty. A. Palay, Searching with probabilities. Y. Ohta, Knowledge based interpretation of outdoor natural color scenes. R. Korf, Learning to solve problems by searching for macro-operators. P. Poliltakis, Empirical Analysis for Expert Systems. J. Kender, Shape from texture. The series covers the whole spectrum of AI and publishes research materials suitable for use in graduate courses, seminars, and reference material for individuals working in this field. The aims of the series are (a) rapid publication in softback form; (b) worldwide exposure for significant research results; and (c) low cost - usually under $20. Authors are encouraged to get in touch with one of the main editors either Sridharan@BBNG or Sleeman@SUMEX. [...] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Dec 84 21:30:31 est From: utcsrgv!dciem!mmt@uw-beaver.arpa Subject: Childhood memories I have many memories dating back to as early as my 2nd birthday, and can clearly remember large parts of the floor plan of the school I attended from 3-5. But ALL these memories are pictorial, not sequential. I cannot remember happenings until about 5, when I remember my first introduction to French verb conjugation. Perhaps the truth is that children are not capable of sequential logical operations until around 5, and therefore cannot remember events of that kind, whereas pictures are more readily preserved if you happen to grow up to be imagery-oriented. Martin Taylor ------------------------------ Date: Thu 6 Dec 84 19:19:58-EST From: Wayne McGuire Subject: Personal Assistants & Optical Disks Re: Dietz's speculation about optical disks: Optical disks will clearly impact information technology in general (microforms, magnetic tape, commercial databases, book publishing, etc.) and microcomputers in particular in many revolutionary ways. One potential use would be to integrate the optical disk with AI-based integrated software in a microcomputer product which would be a powerful general purpose idea processor and personal assistant. We already see a trend towards general purpose idea processors in such micro products as Framework, Symphony, Thinktank, Clout, Dayflo, Factfinder, and The Desk Organizer. This trend is likely to continue and to accelerate as new generations of microprocessors rapidly come online and make available ever greater random access memory for personal computer users. Framework and Symphony are the crude precursors of general purpose personal assistant programs of 1MB, 5MB, and more of memory. A sign of the times: Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus, recently commented in an MIS Week interview that the next key step for his company would be to explore current AI research in depth, and to develop new more powerful products that were capable of sophisticated qualitative, not just quantitative, information processing. Optical disks would nicely interface with the next generation of general purpose idea processors. With them one could easily store, retrieve, and manipulate all the vital information and minute details in one's life: financial transactions, notes for miscellaneous projects, diary entries, address books, medical records, rough drafts, datebooks, electronic mail, shopping lists, statistics, papers, bibliographies, administrivia, programs in progress, graphs, abstracts and full-text documents downloaded from commercial databases, etc. Every individual record or key chunk of information in one's personal digital archive could be uniquely identified by a date and time stamp, and every personal database, structured and/or free-form, could be integrated into a single richly interconnected knowledgebase. The set of storage optical disks for a program of this kind would constitute for anyone, in compact and efficient form, an extremely thorough journal of his or her life. Write-once optical disks would actually be preferable for this archival purpose than disks which could be erased and written over. Subsets from the master archival disk(s), of any desired information or complex combination of records, could be transfered at will to working floppy or hard disks. The technology for the greatest revolution in the history of personal information management is already solidly in place. It is not likely that the total information processed by a personal assistant for an average person over a lifetime would occupy more than one or two disks. Even for someone whose personal information needs were much greater than average--say, a Harvard economics professor who is a dedicated teacher, a prolific scholar and author, holds a cabinet-level post (not concurrently with his teaching responsibilities, of course), and has an active globe-trotting social life--under 100 disks would probably neatly archive a lifetime of rich intellectual, professional, and social activity. Our professor would be able to pinpoint in a few minutes those two sentences in which x remarked about y in a private communication twenty years ago, or that small note of last year which captured a flash of insight about how to improve a formula in an econometric model of the Venezuelan oil industry. (Literary scholars analyzing the biodisks of future Walt Whitmans or Virginia Woolfs would be able to reconstruct in microscopic detail the evolution of their subjects' works and themes, and the interaction of quotidian life events with their imaginative creations.) AI-based personal assistants and optical disks seem to be made for one another. I wouldn't be surprised to see prototype products on the market within the next two years. By the '90s we may well wonder how we ever got by without them. -- Wayne McGuire (mdc.wayne@mit-oz) ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 84 16:22:46 EST From: Allen Subject: more on translation... I understand that a similar attempt with a Chinese/English translator yielded the following results: English input: "Out of sight, out of mind" Translated response: "Blind and Stupid" I did have the occasion to "speak" with a Japanese student using a Sharp(?) hand-held translator. Surprisingly, general ideas were conveyed quite well. However, I think we're still a long way off from getting a computer to translate a language any better than an eight year old bilingual person can. -Allen ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Dec 84 09:58:10 pst From: Douglas young Subject: Nonverbal meaning Following my enquiry in AIList 62, a few people have asked what I mean by "nonverbal meaning". It seems appropriate to reply to them, and to explain to any others who may not understand the significance of the term, through the medium of AIList. While until quite recently Wittgenstein, Frege, Quine, and Chomsky might have seemed nearer than any other philosophers of language ( or anyone else, for that matter) to providing a firm foundation from which to represent meaning, none has been willing to go systematically "deeper" than using words, ultimately, as that foundation. They have written only of very unspecific and vague concepts and structures. But Jerry Fodor's recent and exciting book, " The Modularity of Mind", made, in my view, a major leap ahead, in at least recognising that meaning is founded upon nonverbal, cognitive modules, although he did not suggest either the exact form that such modules might take, nor just how they could be applied to providing nonverbal meaning. We have been working here for several years on the theory and foundations of a system by which word and sentence meaning could be represented nonverbally in a natural language understanding system. The principles of this system arose from clues derived from some neuro- -physiological experiments I conducted during 1976-78 (in which recordings were taken from the pulvinar complex, a part of the brain that in man is involved in language but that also exists as far back the phylogenetic tree as in the rabbit).During the following six years, further neurologic and psychological research provided the detailed foundations of a system by which we could represent the meaning(s) of any word or sentence, in English (but that is essentially transportable to any other major natural language), wholly nonverbally. Some of the neurological and psychological grounds, for both the semantic and the syntactic base of the system were described in two papers published in Medical Hypotheses in 1982,83, but, as I mentioned in my previous communication, the original systems of modalities and coding described in these papers were so long ago superseded that they (but not the grounds) are of little significance now. We are currently in the early stages of designing the software for a prototype of the modal system, and some of the reults of this work should be published during the latter part of 1985. In order to explain as concisely as possible the principles and some of the techniques employed, it may be helpful to take people back to basics: Try to explain by words alone the meaning of any one of a range of different words (eg, MUG, DIFFERENTIATE, WALK, OR, INTERNATIONAL, QUICKLY). You will succeed in providing several sets and trees of dictionary-type definitions; but, in the end ,if you continue to ask yourself the meaning of each new word in each succeeding set of definitions, you will either get into an endless cycle of using the same words with which you began your definitions, or you will reach an impasse. If, however, you then ask yourself, and consider carefully, the subjectively experienced nonverbal significances of those same words, several ideas will come to mind. For example, in respect of MUG, you will likely notice the fact that it has both aspects of "appearance" (such as its visual shape, or the interorientation of its parts to one another) and of "function" (such as the motor and kinaesthetic sequences of events that enable you to drink from a mug). The same kind of thoughts may also occur to you when you consider a word like QUICKLY or UP, for example. Abstract words, like the verb MATCH, and "long" words, like INTERNATIONAL, will require some or many levels of verbal "unfolding" of their meanings in order for you to be able to reach any of their nonverbal foundations; but these words also can be nonverbally represented, by means of the "mental modalities". In fact, all of these nonverbal aspects of meaning can be represented by means of a whole range of modalities. The system incorporates 32 different modalities, of which 27 are neurologically based (such as visual detection of movement (VDM), verbal expression (VXP), kinaesthetic (KIN), central autonomic proprioception and control (CAP)), and 5 are the mental modalities, for which there are no neurological, only cognitive, grounds (such as cognitive mental acts (CMA), metaconceptual (MET), emotive mental states (EMS)). Codes within these modalities, grouped together as a frame of generic parts of function and/or appearance, and closely interrelated, can provide a nonverbal meaning representation for any word. The meaning of a sentence is provided through an interactive syntactic process that, both anteroactively and retroactively, interrelates appropriate segments of those modal code frames, so as to disambiguate both the individual word meanings and their "use-categories" (i.e., "object", "activity", "characteristic", or "relation"). By this method, it is possible to represent the meaning(s) of any sentence nonverbally, and at the same time provide access, up to any depth required of a particular system application, to direct and associated knowledge re that sentence. The modal system seems both versatile and quite powerful, and it has the advantage over some other systems of NLU that it reduces memory and storage requirements by taking advantage of the many cognitively equivalent modal aspects in descriptions of similar objects, activities or characteristics. One rather satisfying aspect of the mental modalities is that the cognitive mental act modality not only provides for the nonverbal meanings of such words as ASSOCIATE, NEGATE, SYMBOLIZE, MATCH or CONJUNCT, but also provides the means of executing the relevant logical activity. Incidentally, another feature of the system is that it can provide for both metaphor and idiom; but work on this will almost certainly be delayed until 1986 due to the need to complete the basic system software for the prototype. It would be inappropriate in the AIList to do more than try to provide with sufficient background an idea of the general characteristics of the system. I hope, however, that what I have written will be sufficient to explain at least what sort of thing I am referring to by "nonverbal meaning" As mentioned in AIList 62, I would be most interested to hear about, and/or to receive copies of any papers from other projects in this or any allied area of natural language understanding. Douglas A,Young Dept of Computer Science University of Manitoba Winnipeg Manitoba, R3T 2N2 CANADA ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 84 11:48:09 EST From: Steven.Shafer@CMU-CS-IUS Subject: Seminar - Reinforcement Learning (CMU) [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] Richard Sutton, from U. Mass., will be speaking at next Tuesday's AI Seminar. WeH 5409 at 3:30 pm. If you'd like to speak with him during his visit, please contact Geoff Hinton. REINFORCEMENT LEARNING: LEARNING METHODS FOR COMPLEX SYSTEMS Reinforcement learning is the process of learning to make decisions based on the observed results of previous decisions. It is distinguished from other forms of machine learning in that it does not require instruction as to what the learning system should do, only evaluation of what it does do. In this sense reinforcement learning requires less help from its environment and is more powerful and robust than other forms of learning. In complex learning systems it is particularly difficult to specify in detail what the learning system should do, and reinforcement learning is particularly relevant. Nevertheless, reinforcement learning has been studied very little. This talk will present computational experiments comparing the performance of many previously-studied algorithms and several new ones. In many cases the previously proposed algorithms were found to perform very poorly, much worse than the new algorithms. Since in many cases the new algorithms are only slightly different from the old, these results suggest that the space of possible reinforcement learning algorithms is mostly unexplored. Among the previously-studied algorithms compared are those due to Minsky, Rosenblatt, Farley and Clark, Widrow, Samuel, and Michie and Chambers. The most sophisticated of the new algorithms appears to be a refinement and generalization of the algorithm used in Samuel's celebrated checker-player to modify and improve its static evaluation function. This talk will emphasize (1) the difference between reinforcement learning and other basic forms of learning which have already been thoroughly studied, (2) the demonstration of improvement over previously-studied methods, and (3) areas of possible application of reinforcement learning methods. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: CSVPI 12-DEC-1984 00:34 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a002548; 11 Dec 84 13:41 EST Date: Tue 11 Dec 1984 09:54-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #175 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Wed, 12 Dec 84 00:28 EST AIList Digest Tuesday, 11 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 175 Today's Topics: AI Tools - Tapes on LM & XLISP Availabilty, AI News & Expert Systems - Recent Articles & Machine Poker, AI Tools - Parallel Processing and OPS5, Humor - Lardware & History of Computing Qual, Seminars - Connection Language for Parallel Computers (MIT) & Instructionless Learning (CMU) Course - Sets and Processes (SU) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 10 Dec 1984 at 1125-EST From: jim at TYCHO.ARPA (James B. Houser) Subject: Tapes on LM Hi We just got a new "industry standard" 9-track tape drive from Symbolics for our 36??. Has anyone worked out how to convert tape formats so you can interchange with other processors? We are especially interested in LMI and UNIX. Cheers Jim ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Dec 84 3:52:54 EST From: "Martin R. Lyons" <991@NJIT-EIES.MAILNET> Subject: XLISP availabilty Does anyone have the C source of XLISP laying around? Our copy we had forwarded to us was destroyed when we had a system crash. I believe it was version 1.2, but this is a best guess. If anyone has any information regarding other public domain LISPs written in C I would appreciate pointers as to who to contact, etc. to get a copy. As always, thanks in advance... MAILNET: Marty@NJIT-EIES.Mailnet ARPA: Marty%NJIT-EIES.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA USPS: Marty Lyons, CCCC/EIES @ New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 High St., Newark, NJ 07102 (201) 596-2932 "You're in the fast lane....so go fast." ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 8 Dec 84 06:42:05 cst From: Laurence Leff Subject: AI News Datamation December 1 1984 Page 172 Ovum ltd. announces their report "The commerical Application of Expert Systems Technology." It costs $395 and is available from Ovum Ltd., 14 Penn Rd. London N7 9RD, England (including air mail). Byte, December 1984 Page 412 - Ad: Walt Lisp for CP/M for $169.00. It is substantially compatable with Franz Lisp and similar to MacLisp. $169.00 1-800-LIP-4000 from ProCode International 15930 SW Colony Pl. Portland, Or 97224 Page 355: Review of micro-Prolog: Available from Programming Logic Systems 31 Crescent Drive, Milford, CT 06460 Electronic News, December 3 1984 Page E Symbolics has signed a contract valued at > $3,000,000 to supply 50 3600 Series Lisp Machines to Carnegie Group Inc. Page 44 Announcement of Inforite Tablet which recognizes hand printed characters, graphics and sketches. ------------------------------ Date: Fri 7 Dec 84 17:49:26-EST From: SRIDHARAN@BBNG.ARPA Subject: Excerpt from "games" mag From the Jan 85 issueof GAMES p6-7 "How do you beat a poker player blessed with the supreme poker face? That's one of the problems that will confront the winner of a $100,000 poker tournament to be held this month at the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens, California. Whoever takes the event's high-draw competition must face a poker-playing computer named ORAC in a head-to-head, no-limit game of draw poker. ORAC was developed by Mike Caro [Why is the program called ORAC?.. nss] a top Las Vegas poker pro and computer whiz. Not only is ORAC programmed to beat people, it is also capable of explaining in English the strategy used. ORAC has not had an easy life thus far. Its first trial by fire was last April at the 1984 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, where it played a heads-up game against the then reigning world champion of poker, Tom McEvoy. Though ORAC normally generates its own cards, a human dealer was used at the World Series to allay any suspicion of cheating. The computer read its hand with a special optical scanner similar to the ones used in supermarket checkout counters. Man and machine played just about dead even for three-quarters of an hour until ORAC moved all its chips in with an ace-queen of diamonds against McEvoy's ace-nine off suit. (the game was hold'em, a variation of seven-card stud). McEvoy held by far the worst hand, but he was lucky enough to draw a pair of 9's and claim victory. Commented the world champ: "The fact that the computer went in with the best hand and got drawn out on proves it's only human" [Hmm.!] ... The computer has proved itself a world-class competitor. As for the upcoming match at the Bicycle Club, Caro is full of confidence: "ORAC will not only win," he says sanguinely, "but immediately afterwards, it will write its own press release, explaining its actions during the match." ------------------------------ Date: 11 December 1984 0140-EST From: Joseph Kownacki@CMU-CS-A Subject: Parallel Processing and OPS5 [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] OPS3/CM* is a facility on CM* which can execute OPS3/OPS5 programs in parallel. The current version is not a complete system, but it is capable of executing a repesentative subset of the TicTacToe program in parallel. This post is a request for OPS5 test programs, especially those of moderate size, which demonstrate (or counter-demonstrate) the usefulness of parallel processing in this application. A complex version of TTT or 8-puzzle would be immediately handy. Any assistance or suggestion in obtaining such examples would be greatly appreciated. Could you also disseminate this message forward to any other people or groups that may be helpful. You can obtain background information on OPS3/CM* from my Plan file - just finger J. Kownacki. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Dec 84 13:12:29 cst From: "Walter G. Rudd" Subject: Special purpose hardware There are still some open questions regarding the optimality of Buell's sorting malgorithm (generate all N! possible permutations of the N items to be sorted and then test each permutation to see if it is the sorted result). Nevertheless, the malgorithm does offer some interesting properties when one considers the possibility of using an array of parallel processors to implement the malgorithm. One can show that an array of N numbers can be sorted in constant time by an N by N! array of processors and a data memory of the same size plus an auxiliary memory that consists of one bit per processor. We divide the set of processors into N! one-dimensional arrays of N elements. Each of these arrays is reponsible for generating and testing one of the N! permutations of the items to be sorted. In the first step, each of the N processors in each array loads one of the items to be sorted and stores it at a predetermined location to generate the permutations. In the second step, each processor compares two neighboring items in its permutation and sets a bit in the auxiliary memory if the items are in the proper order. Finally, one of the processors in each array examines its set of N bits in the auxiliary memory to determine which of the permutations is in the proper order. A nice feature of this architecture is that it readily extends to support descendents of the malgorithm, such as that recently suggested by Lee and Brownson. Question: if bad algorithms are called malgorithms, what should we call architectures designed to implement malgorithms? Cross suggests lardware. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 84 20:06:06 EST From: Ed.Frank@CMU-CS-UNH Subject: History of Computing Qual [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] It's clear from an earlier post [on the CMU bboard, asking about memory cores,] that there is a need in the department for a qual on the history of various aspects of computing anachronisms, trivia, etc. Such a qual will be given on Black Friday, at 3pm in the lounge. Following standard practice, the syllabus will not be available until next semester, the qual will not be pretested, and many of the questions will be unclear. This qual will cover all four areas. Send questions for inclusion in the qual to me and I'll forward them to the History of Computing Qual committee. Anyone interesting in being on the qual committee should also send me mail. Some sample questions (Please don't send me the answers to these questions. Just send me more questions.): Computing Systems: What's a drum card? Programing Systems: Describe a technique for getting a computer into an infinite loop without ever executing a branch instruction. Name a machine with this feature. Theory Describe the fundamental difference between Eniac and the Manchester Mark I. AI What do CAR and CDR mean? On what machine? ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 1984 16:35 EST (Fri) From: "Daniel S. Weld" Subject: Seminar - Connection Language for Parallel Computers (MIT) [Forwarded from the MIT bboard by SASW@MIT-MC.] === === === AI REVOLVING SEMINAR === === === ALan Bawden A Programming Language for Massively Parallel Computers or Help Stamp Out "Pointerthink"! Wednesday, December 12, 1984 4:00pm 8th floor playroom The notion of a "pointer" is built deeply into many modern programming languages. Pointers are routinely used as the cement to build complex data structures, even where other mechanisms would suffice, because on conventional sequential computers they are cheap and their hazards are easy to control. Unfortunately the pointer is expensive and clumsy to support on a massively parallel computer. The notion of a "connection" will be offered as a suitable substitute for the pointer. Connections are a minimal mechanism to allow communication; they are more constrained than pointers and are less of a hazard in a parallel environment. Most uses of pointers are trivial enough that connections can be used instead. This makes it feasible to construct a programming language using connections, instead of pointers, as the primitive cement for building data structures. There are many consequences of making the switch from pointers to connections. Due to the symmetry of the connection mechanism, the concepts of "object" and "type" become exact duals of the concepts of "message" and "operation". The notion of "state" emerges not as an aspect of objects, but as an aspect of the interface between processes. The problems of method inheritance in a Flavor-like system are revealed to be even nastier than previously suspected. The "futures" mechanism, popular among parallel programming languages, emerges as a natural consequence of the connection mechanism. ------------------------------ Date: 8 December 1984 2230-EST From: Jeff Shrager@CMU-CS-A Subject: Seminar - Instructionless Learning (CMU) [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] Instructionless Learning A Proposal for Dissertation Research Jeff Shrager Department of Psychology Carnegie-Mellon University On: Friday December 14 At: 10:30am-Noon In: Baker Hall 336B We investigate the mechanisms of instructionless learning by asking undergraduates to "figure out" a programmable toy, without instructions or advice. From protocols, we obtain learners' hypotheses and the behaviors that they exhibit which lead to learning a schema for the device. Behaviors include performing hypothesis testing experiments, explorations of various aspects of the device and the incomplete schema, and solving problems to exercise the schema. The present proposal is to construct and validate a theory of instructionless learning of the BigTrak. The theory includes mechanisms of hypothesis formation, experimental test construction, and overall learning control. This work advances theories of concept learning in complex realistic domains; mental models of complex systems, in particular their acquisition; and cognitive modelling and its validation. [Copies of the proposal are available in the Psych Lounge.] ------------------------------ Date: 07 Dec 84 0845 PST From: Carolyn Talcott Subject: Course - Sets and Processes (SU) [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] SETS AND PROCESSES MATH 294 (PHIL 394) WINTER QUARTER. COURSE ANOUNCEMENT provisional time: Fridays, 1.15---3.15. The standard universe of well-founded sets can be completed in a natural way so as to incorporate every possible non-well-founded set. The new completed universe will still model all the axioms of set theory except that the foundation axiom must be replaced by an anti-foundation axiom. The first part of the course will be concerned with this new axiom, its model and its consequences. Several interesting variants of the axiom will also be examined. The second part of the course will be concerned with an axiomatic approach to a general notion of abstract sequential process. These processes are capable of interacting with each other so that a variety of operations for their parallel composition will be available. The notion is intended to form the foundation for an approach to the semantics of programming languages involving concurrency. A model for the axiom system can be extracted from recent work of Robin Milner. But by using the anti-foundation axiom a simple purely set theoretic model will be given. Some familiarity with the axiomatic theory of sets and classes will be presupposed. An understanding of the notion of a class model of ZFC will be needed. Definition by recursion on a well-founded relation and Mostowski's collapsing lemma will be relevent. But topics such as the constructible universe, forcing or large cardinals will NOT be needed. Some familiarity with computation theory would be useful. Underlying the model constructions in both parts of the course is a general result whose apreciation will require some familiarity with the elements of universal algebra and category theory. Background references will be available at the start of the course. Auditors are very welcome. The course may be of interest to both mathematicians and computer scientists. PETER ACZEL ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: COMSAT 14-DEC-1984 01:48 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a011503; 13 Dec 84 16:28 EST Date: Thu 13 Dec 1984 12:00-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #176 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 14 Dec 84 01:29 EST AIList Digest Thursday, 13 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 176 Today's Topics: AI Companies - Survey, Machine Translation - Folklore & Aymara', Linguistics - Language Deficiencies, Humor - Nondeficient Christmas Tidings, Conferences - Machine Translation & JASIS Call for Papers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thursday, 13 December 1984 00:24:23 EST From: Duvvuru.Sriram@cmu-ri-cive.arpa Subject: Information about AI companies I am trying to put together a survey of various tools available in the market for AI work. In particular I am interested in an assessment of the tools (user experiences). Also would appreciate any information about the kind of systems that AI companies are building. sriram@cmu-ri-cive.arpa ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 84 11:37 EST From: Gocek.henr@XEROX.ARPA Subject: Re: Automatic Chinese translation I remember the story about "Out of sight, out of mind" differently. The phrase was translated into Chinese and then retranslated into English. The result was "invisible idiot". Again, the person requesting the translation was a government official. Gary Gocek (Gocek.Henr@Xerox.ARPA) [I first heard it as "blind idiot". -- KIL] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 Dec 1984 16:14 EST From: MINSKY%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: Translation Folklore V2 #174 I'm getting sick of hearing those two stories: "Blind and Stupid," and "The drinks were good but the meat was rotten." It is time for you computer-people to start being serious! Those stories are only folklore, and did not come from the machine-translation milieu at all; they circulated long before computers, and were invented by cynic to make fun of bad human translators! If you think about it for a minute, you will realize that none of the old translating machines were even nearly subtle enough to make such coherent mistakes! Modern ones are only a little better, and probably not quite up to that standard yet. Has anyone heard of a genuine translation blunder by a working translation machine -- that is, one which is bad enough to be considered really funny? I consider a few of the paraphrases produced by FRUMP to be in that class. ------------------------------ Date: Tue 11 Dec 84 09:46:43-PST From: Ken Laws Subject: Aymara' I just ran across an article in the S.F. Sunday Examiner and Chronicle by Peter McFarren, Associated Press, Sept. 23, 1984, p. A17. Most of the content has been published in AIList already, but the following may be new. "Atamiri [Guzman de Rojas' program] is 10 times faster than any of the others," said Bill Page, a computer specialist at the International Research Center in Ottawa, Canada. The center published Guzman de Rojas' first study of Atamiri's potential in 1980, and Wang has just offered him a $50,000 grant and a $100,000 computer to refine his system. The creator of Atamiri hopes to expand its vocabulary from the current 3,000 to 8,000 words per language [English, French, German, Portugese, and Spanish] to about 30,000. Then, he says, it will be possible to translate prosaic texts such as newspaper articles with about 90 percent accuracy. Literary translations would come later, but human translators will always have to be around to make corrections. -- Ken Laws ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 84 16:21:58 pst From: ucdavis!lakhota@Berkeley (Lakhota) Subject: Language deficiencies (AI List Digest 2:167,168,172) The interesting discussion of possible language deficiencies was triggered by two anecdotes, one involving Australian Aborigines and the other American Indians. It would be useful in this context to look at some empirical facts relating to these languages. Australian languages are perfectly capable of forming conditional and hypothetical expressions. Examples of languages with references follow below: Dyirbal - Dixon, THE DYIRBAL LANGUAGE OF NORTH QUEENSLAND. CUP, 1972. Tiwi - Osborne, THE TIWI LANGUAGE. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies [AIAS], Australian Aboriginal Studies no. 55, Linguistic Series no. 21, 1974. Walmatjari - Hudson, THE CORE OF WALMATJARI GRAMMAR. AIAS, 1978. Guugu Yimidhirr - Haviland, Guugu Yimidhirr. In Dixon & Blake (eds.), HANDBOOK OF AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGES [HAL], v. 1. John Benjamins, 1979. Djapu - Morphy, Djapu, a Yolngu dialect. HAL, v. 3. John Benjamins, 1983. Yukulta - Keen, Yukulta. HAL, v. 3. Nunggubuyu - Heath, A FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR OF NUNGGUBUYU. Humanities Press, 1984. The same holds true for American Indian languages. It is worth mentioning that there is now more on Hopi than Whorf's papers. E. Malotki has written two 700 page books on Hopi concepts of space and time: HOPI TIME, Mouton, 1983, and HOPI RAUM (not yet translated into English). These volumes should lay to rest speculation about what Hopi does and doesn't have. Examples of American Indian languages and references follow: Nootka - Sapir & Swadesh, NOOTKA TEXTS. LSA, 1939. Yokuts - Newman, YOKUTS LANGUAGE OF CALIFORNIA. VFPA 2, 1944. Cree - Wolfart, PLAINS CREE: A GRAMMATICAL SKETCH. Trans. APS, 1973. Takelma - Sapir, The Takelma Language of Southwestern Oregon. HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN INDIAN LANGUAGES [HAIL], v. 2 (BBAE 40, 2), 1922. Tunica - Haas, TUNICA. HAIL, v. 4. J.J. Augustin, 1940. Uto-Aztecan - Langacker, AN OVERVIEW OF UTO-AZTECAN LANGUAGES. STUDIES IN UTO-AZTECAN GRAMMAR, v. 1. SIL Publ. in Ling. 56, 1977. There are hundreds of Aboriginal and American Indian languages, and these are only a handful of examples. Nevertheless, they illustrate the point that these languages do have the capacity for forming conditional, counterfactual, and hypothetical expressions. If anyone desires any further references, I'd be happy to supply them. Robert Van Valin (ucdavis!lakhota@BERKELEY) Linguistics, UC Davis ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 84 10:40:02 pst From: Peter Karp Subject: Christmas Tidings [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS ------------------------- Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence, kinnetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the wood burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an immiment visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas. The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically through their cerebrums. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal head coverings, were about to take slumbrous avantage of the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended such a cacaphony of dissonance that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source thereof. Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing this fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian itself-- thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to behold a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule, aged chauffeur so ebullient and numble that it became instantly apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his ungulate motive power travelling at what may possibly have been more vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted labia, and addressed each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen - "Now Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. - guiding them to the uppermost exterior level of our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities. As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved - with utmost celerity and via a downward leap - entry by way of the smoke passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebon residue from oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed largely to the plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodious cloth receptacle. His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging amiability. The capillaries of his malar regions and nasal appurtenance were engorged with blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the former approximating the coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter that of the Prunus avium, or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and supralabials resembled nothing so much as a common loop knot, and their ambient hirsute facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water. Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking piece whose gray fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical container. He was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocun, multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom rendered me risibly frolicsome despite every effort to refrain from so being. By rapidly lowering and then elevating one eyelid and rotating his head slightly to one side, he indicted that trepidation on my part was groundless. Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the aforementioned articles of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about-face, placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and forthwith effected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility: "Ecstatic yuletide to the planetary constituency, and to that selfsame assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn." -- From Eleonore Johnson at Teknowledge ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 84 00:06 EST From: Sergei Nirenburg Subject: Conference - Machine Translation CALL FOR PAPERS CONFERENCE ON THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES IN MACHINE TRANSLATION OF NATURAL LANGUAGES Colgate University Hamilton NY 13346 August 14-16, 1985 The program of the conference will be biased toward invited lectures and panel discussions. However, a restricted number of excellent submitted papers will be also included. The major topics of the conference are as follows : -- Machine Translation (MT) as an application area for Theoretical Linguistics (including stylistics and discourse analysis) -- MT as an application area for Artificial Intelligence (including the choice of the representation schemata for MT) -- Theory and methodology of translation and machine translation -- Sublanguages, restricted domains and MT -- MT as a case study in software system development -- Computational tools for MT, human engineering aspects, management and evaluation of MT projects. The papers should not exceed 3,000 words, should contain a 250-word abstract and a list of index terms. Send them (and address all inquiries) to Sergei Nirenburg MT Conference Program Chair Department of COmputer Science Colgate University Hamilton NY 13346 (315) 824-1000 x586 Every paper will be read by two members of the program committee whose members are: Christian Boitet, University of Grenoble Jaime Carbonell, Carnegie-Mellon University David MacDonald, University of Massachusetts James Pustejovsky, University of Massachusetts Allen Tucker, Colgate University Don Walker, AT&T Laboratories The emphasis of the conference is on the theoretical and methodological issues. Therefore, the papers that do not address such issues will not be considered. Dates: Submission deadline -- March 11, 1985 Notification of acceptance -- May 15, 1985 Final version due -- June 17, 1985 >>>>> the above will provide a good opportunity to conduct more lively >>>>> discussions of Aymara, Sastric Sanskrit, Esperanto, etc., the >>>>> problem of translatability, theory of translation (even not >>>>> necessarily automatic), interlinguae and their structure... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 84 11:20:41 cst From: Don Kraft Subject: JASIS Call for Papers As the new editor of the JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE (JASIS), I am sending out a call for papers. We are a refereed professional journal seeking scholarly, relevant articles in the area of information sci- ence. To submit an article, please send three copies of the manuscript to me at Donald H. Kraft Department of Computer Science Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA 70803. If you have any questions, I can also be reached at (504) 388-1495 or kraft%lsu@csnet-relay . I have attached below a list of topics considered relevant. Please note the presence of artificial intelligence, which has become of interest, especially in the area of informa- tion retrieval (intelligent front ends, expert systems, and the use of natural language processing seem especially relevant to my readers at the moment). You may wish to check out the September, 1984 (v. 35, n. 5) issue, which featured a series of articles on AI. CALL FOR PAPERS -- JASIS 1. Theory of Information Science 4. Applied Information Science Foundations of Information Science Informations systems design -- Information theory tools, principles, applications Bibliometrics Case histories Information retrieval -- Information system operations models and principles Standards Evaluation and measurement Information technology -- hardware Representation, organization, and and software classification of information Automation of information systems ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE and natural Online retrieval systems language processing Office automation and records management 2. Communication 5. Social and Legal Aspects of Information Theory of communication Non-print media Impact of information systems and Man-machine interaction technology upon society Network design, operation, and Ethics and information management Legislative and regulatory aspects Models and empirical findings about History of information science information transfer Information science education User and usage studies International issues 3. Management, Economics, and Marketing Economics of information Management of information systems Models of information management decisions Marketing and market research studies Special clientele -- arts and humanities, behavioral and social sciences, biological and chemical sciences, energy and environment, legal, medical, and education. Authors may also send in brief communications, scholarly opinion pieces, and even letters to the editor. In addition, we also have a fine book review section. Thank you in advance for your consideration of JASIS. Don Kraft kraft%lsu@csnet-relay ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: COMSAT 14-DEC-1984 01:49 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a012590; 13 Dec 84 21:28 EST Date: Thu 13 Dec 1984 17:29-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #177 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 14 Dec 84 01:39 EST AIList Digest Friday, 14 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 177 Today's Topics: AI in Engineering - SIGART Special Issue, Expert Systems - Micro Survey & Poker & Personal Assistants, Planning - Constraint Propagation and Planning, Report - Reflection and Semantics in LISP Humor - Scientific Method, Seminars - Three-valued Hintikkian Epistemic Logic (CSLI) & The Sequential Nature of Unification (IBM-SJ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thursday, 13 December 1984 00:28:33 EST From: Duvvuru.Sriram@cmu-ri-cive.arpa Subject: SIGART special issue on AI in Engineering The deadline for submissions of abstracts for the special issue is extened to January 15th for all Arpanet mailers. For more information on this issue see SIGART newsletter dated July 1984. All submissions should be sent to rj@cmu-cs-h.arpa. Sriram ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Dec 84 16:05:23 mst From: "Arthur I. Karshmer" Subject: Expert systems I am interested in obtaining information about expert systems that run on micro computers and software to develop expert system on micro processors. We are currently using a variety of micro's including IBM PC'c and IBM-AT's. Arthur I. Karshmer arthur.nmsu@csnet-relay ------------------------------ Date: 12 Dec 84 10:35:28 EST From: Jeffrey Shulman Subject: ORAC's Poker Game This past weekend (Sunday 12/9) "Ripley's Believe It or Not" had a segment on ORAC's poker game. You should try to catch it in rerun. Jeff ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 84 17:28:04 EST From: David_West%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: McGuire's Speculations on Personal Assistants (v2 #174) -Of course, the biodisks of a future Walt Whitman would be exhaustively analyzed not by a future Louis Untermeyer, but by the latter's automated personal assistant, and the resulting voluminously definitive biography would be read and enjoyed by the public's personal assistants. Thus we would all be freed from untold drudgery, to fulfil the vision of Villiers de L'Isle-Adam (1890): "Living? Our servants will do that for us." :-) ------------------------------ Date: 12 Dec 84 13:30:24 EST From: Louis Steinberg Subject: Constraint Propagation and Planning A recent message from chandra@uiucuxc@uiucdcs@RAND-RELAY.ARPA asked about people working on Constraint Propagation and Planning ala Stefik's MOLGEN. The AI/VLSI Project at Rutgers is using this approach in building a system to do design. Our thesis is that: Design = Top Down Refinement + Constraint Propagation Our current system aids in the design of digital VLSI circuits, but we believe the ideas apply to the design of other kinds of things as well. Design and the sort of planning chandra was talking about are essentially the same problem, although there are some peculiar things about blocks-world style domains that make planning/design issues a bit different than they are in design of circuits or, to some extent, programs. The only paper I can point you to on our design stuff is: Mitchell, Steinberg, and Shulman, "A Knowledge Based Approach to Redesign", Proceedings of IEEE workshop on Principles of Knowledge Based Systems, Denver, December 3-4, 1984 Also, many of our ideas flow from previous work on REdesign and on constraint propagation in circuits - see, for instance: Steinberg, L. and Mitchell, T., "A Knowledge Based Approach to VLSI CAD", Proceedings of 21st Design Automation Conference, June, 1984. Kelly, V. "The CRITTER System: Automated Critiquing of Digital Circuit Designs", Proceedings of 21st Design Automation Conference, June, 1984. Mitchell, T., Steinberg, L., Kedar-Cabelli, S., Kelly, V., Shulman, J., Weinrich, T., "An Intelligent Aid for Circuit Redesign", Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1983, pp. 274-278. Kelly, V., and Steinberg, L., "The CRITTER System: Analyzing Digital Circuits by Propagating Behaviors and Constraints", Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1982, pp. 284-289. Also Report LCSR-TR-30, Dept. of Computer Science, Rutgers University. Mitchell, T., Steinberg, L., Smith, R. G., Schooley, P., Kelly, V., and Jacobs, H., "Representations for Reasoning about Digital Circuits," Proceedings of the Seventh International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1981, pp. 343-344. ------------------------------ Date: Wed 12 Dec 84 17:54:25-PST From: Dikran Karagueuzian Subject: Report - Reflection and Semantics in LISP [Excerpted from the CSLI Newsletter by Laws@SRI-AI.] NEW EDITION OF CSLI REPORT NO. 8 The final edition of Report No. CSLI--84--8, entitled ``Reflection and Semantics in LISP'' by Brian Smith, has now been published. Copies of this report may be obtained by writing to Dikran Karagueuzian at CSLI. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6-Dec-84 00:42:44 PST From: reid@Glacier.ARPA Subject: Scientific Method [Forwarded to the Xerox bikers' bboard by Trow.PA@XEROX.] [Forwarded to the Xerox bboard by Ayers.PA@XEROX.] [Forwarded from the Xerox bboard by PolleZ.PA@XEROX.] [Forwarded to the Stanford bboard by Jock@SU-SCORE.] [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] Subject: net.bicycle.freewheel.cleaning: a reprise As avid readers of this group may remember, we had a big row about cleaning freewheels this summer, which was sort of ended when Fred at Varian, who is an analytical chemist, and me, Brian at Stanford, who is a professor of CS, got into a disagreement about something having to do with chemistry and Brian at Stanford had the rare sense to keep his mouth shut. However, despite being merely a computer scientist, and being quite willing to work out of doors where the fumes won't kill him as fast, Brian remained slightly unconvinced that the chemicals suggested by Fred at Varian were in fact better at cleaning freewheels than the junk currently used by Brian at Stanford. Brian had this vague suspicion that Fred the Chemist from Varian had been exposed to lectures telling him to stay away from the kind of toxic chemicals that Brian liked to use to clean freewheels, in much the same way that Brian the CS professor lectures his students to stay away from Fortran and IBM PC's. So Brian went out in the rain and did some experiments. Actually, he had another attack of good sense and stayed on his back porch, where the rain did not fall directly on his head or on his freewheels or into his chemicals. Now here a problem developed. Computer Scientists do not customarily do experiments. Computer Scientists normally just say things because it makes them feel good, and if they say them loudly and brashly enough then the things become true. The current U.S. 5th generation computer project is a good example of this. But Brian at Stanford was once a physics major at the University of Maryland, and he remembered how to run experiments after some consultation with his old Physics 171 lab notebooks. The gist of it seemed to be that you were supposed to do something twice, and the second would be identical to the first in every way except for one controlled variable, and then if there were any differences you could chalk them up to that variable. I think you're supposed to do a Chi Square test in there too, or maybe draw some graphs, but this was just an amateur experiment. As the light dawned, Brian realized that he could do this experiment using some hardware that was near and dear to his hacker's heart. Brian's wife had given him a birthday present consisting of a real mother of a power saw, a Milwaukee worm drive power saw, with a finetooth carbide blade. That saw is just the cat's meow--you put the carbide blade on it, put on the requisite eye and lung protectors, and wow, you can rip up anything you can reach. Joe-Bob Briggs would be thrilled. The same feeling that you get when you first run some code on a Cray, that feeling of almost limitless power, can be had much more cheaply with a Milwaukee worm drive saw with a good carbide blade. In particular, a Milwaukee worm drive saw with a carbide blade will saw a freewheel clean in half. Lots of wild sparks shooting everywhere, but since it's raining they probably won't set very much on fire. Ball bearings getting caught in the carbide teeth and being whipped around at 200 mph and shot across the yard, scaring the squirrels. Oh, this was great fun. After counting his fingers and finding them all still intact, Brian took these two demi-freewheels and stuck them in two old margarine tubs, which are one of the principal tools of the serious amateur freewheel cleaner. Brian got out a beaker (after all, this was an experiment, right? Experiments use beakers) and measured out a beakerful of Berryman's Carburetor Cleaner [brian's favorite toxic chemical for cleaning freewheels]. This beakerful didn't cover the freewheel much, because it was a 60ml beaker, so then Brian poured a bunch of glugs of Berryman's on top of the freewheel, until it was immersed. Brian figured he would face the issue of how to clean the beaker and return it to his kitchen at a later time. The label on the Berryman's can says it contains Methylene Chloride, Cresylic acid, and Perchloroethylene. Into the other margarine tub Brian put the other half of the freewheel, and then poured out a bunch of glugs of "Gunk" brand degreasing liquid. The label on the Gunk can says it contains Petroleum Distillates. Brian is sufficiently afraid of Berryman's Carburetor Cleaner that he didn't want to go messing with it by stirring it or sticking a brush into it, but it was quite clear to Brian from the moment this experiment started that the Gunk was going to need some help, so he took an acid brush and used it to scrub parts of the surface of the freewheel that was soaking in Gunk. Brian then went to eat a chicken chimichanga (hold the sour cream) and came back about 20 minutes later to inspect the results of the experiment. The result was that there was no grease on either freewheel half, but there was still a pile of rust and black goop and garbage on the Gunk half, though not as much in the places where it had been brushed. The Berryman's Carbuetor Cleaner half was as clean as a new whistle, gleaming metal. A dead insect of some sort was floating in the Berryman's, busily dissolving. Brian longed for the skills of a real physical scientist--to weigh these bisected freewheels on a microbalance, or look at them under high-powered microscopes, or grind them up and feed them to a mass spectrometer, but none of these machines were in evidence in the back yard, so instead he just washed them off with soap and water and looked at them under a bright light. What he saw is that the Berryman's Carburetor Cleaner gets freewheel halves (and therefore, presumably, freewheels) really really clean, by dissolving or decaying or disintegrating the grease and the rust and the insects. And that the Gunk gets the grease off of freewheels, and if you scrub it will get the dirt off, but it leaves the rust behind. The moral of this story seems to be that if you are a responsible freewheel owner and you clean it as often as it wants to be cleaned and you avoid letting it get built up with dirt and you keep it out of the rain, all of which are good things to do to a freewheel, that Gunk degreaser (or other similar chemicals) works just fine. But if you let your freewheel go too far, to get to the point where if it were teeth you know your dentist would give you a long lecture about flossing, that you should clean it with some sort of toxic waste such as Berryman's Carburetor Cleaner (which has been found "more effective" in scientific experiments at a major university.....) Brian Reid Reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA decwrl!glacier!reid ------------------------------ Date: Wed 12 Dec 84 17:54:25-PST From: Dikran Karagueuzian Subject: Seminar - Three-valued Hintikkian Epistemic Logic (CSLI) [Excerpted from the CSLI Newsletter by Laws@SRI-AI.] SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NL1 SEMINAR ``Three-valued Hintikkian Epistemic Logic'' By Lauri Carlson Hintikka's system of epistemic logic in K&B and Models for Modalities contains a number of peculiar features (restricted range feature, treatment of irreducible existential formulae) which skew the natural interpretation of certain formulae and make it hard to ascertain completeness of the system(s). For instance the formula (x)(Ey)Kx=y is valid (and does not mean I "know who everyone is"), while (Ex)(Ey)(x=y & -Kx=y) is inconsistent (and does not mean "There is someone who might be two different people as far as I know"). Lauri Carlson presented a version of epistemic logic which overcomes these difficulties and can be shown complete with respect to its intended Kripkean style semantics. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 84 09:35:13 PST From: IBM San Jose Research Laboratory Calendar Reply-to: IBM-SJ Calendar Subject: Seminar - The Sequential Nature of Unification (IBM-SJ) [Forwarded from the SRI-AI bboard.] IBM San Jose Research Lab 5600 Cottle Road San Jose, CA 95193 Mon., Dec. 17 Computer Science Seminar 2:00 P.M. ON THE SEQUENTIAL NATURE OF UNIFICATION Audit. A Unification of terms is a crucial step in resolution theorem proving with applications to a variety of symbolic computation problems. It will be shown that the general problem is log-space complete for P, even if infinite substitutions are allowed. Thus, it is "popularly unlikely" that unification can enjoy substantial speed-up in a parallel model of computation. A fast parallel (NC) algorithm for term matching, an important subcase of unification, will also be presented. This talk assumes no familiarity with unification or its applications. Dr. C. Dwork, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Laboratory for Computer Science Host: J. Halpern [...] ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: CSVPI 16-DEC-1984 20:56 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a000455; 16 Dec 84 17:07 EST Date: Sun 16 Dec 1984 13:19-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #178 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Sun, 16 Dec 84 20:46 EST AIList Digest Sunday, 16 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 178 Today's Topics: Linguistics - Nonverbal Semantics ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Dec 84 13:13:04 EST From: Bruce Nevin Subject: Nonverbal Semantics [Long Message] >It's . . . convenient to talk about natural language as if >it's something "on its own". However, I view this attitude >as scientifically unhealthy, since it leads to an >overemphasis on linguistic structure. Surely the >interesting questions about NL concern those cognitive >processes involved in getting from NL to thoughts in memory >and back out again to language. These processes involve >forming models of what the speaker/listener knows, and >applying world knowledge and context. NL structure plays >only a small part in these overall processes, since the main >ones involve knowledge application, memory interactions, >memory search, inference, etc. Dyer V2 #160 >Bravo, Dyer! As you suggest, there is indeed much to learn >from the study of natural language -- but not about "natural >language itself"; we can learn what kinds of manipulations >and processes occur in the under-mind with enough frequency >and significance that it turns out to be useful to signify >them with surface language features. >. . . All that is very fine. We should indeed study >languages. But to "define" them is wrong. You define the >things YOU invent; you study the things that already exist. >. . . But when one confuses the two situations, as in the >subjects of generative linguistics or linguistic competence >-- ah, a mind is a terrible thing to waste, as today's >natural language puts it. Minsky V2 #162 I suspect that the antipathy to natural-language parsers, grammars, and theories that we often encounter in AI literature reflects a healthy revulsion from the excesses of generative linguistics. In all of its many schizmatic forms, generative grammer posits, as the secret inner mechanism of language, one of various language-like systems that share historical roots with programming languages, and uses natural-language data only in a fragmentary and anecdotal way to advance or refute the latest version. These systems can be quite hairy, but I am convinced that the hair is mostly inside the heads of the theorists. Any natural phenomenon, or any artifact of human culture, is a legitimate object of study. Natural language is both an artifact of human culture, and a natural phenomenon. There are some who are studying language, as opposed to the grammatical machinery of language-like systems. I recently reviewed a book by the linguist from whom Noam Chomsky learned about linguistic transformations (among other things). It will appear in AJCL vol. 10 nos. 3 and 4 (a double issue). The following excerpt gives an outline of the model of language he has developed: I refer to the Harrisian model of language as `constructive grammar' and to the Harrisian paradigm for linguistics as `constructive linguistics'. A constructive grammar has at least the following six characteristics: 1 The semantic primes are words in the language, a base vocabulary that is a proper subset of the vocabulary of the language as a whole. 2 Generation of sentences in the base is by word entry, beginning with entry of (mostly concrete) base nouns. The only condition for a word to enter is that its argument requirement must be met by some previously entering word or words, generally the last entry or entries, which must not already be in the argument of some other word. The base vocabulary has thus a few simple classes of words: N base nouns with null argument On, Onn operators requiring base nouns as arguments Oo, Ooo requiring operators as arguments Ono, Oon requiring combinations of operators and base nouns [NOTE: these are intended to be O with subscripts] This does not exhaust the base vocabulary. In addition to these, almost all of the operators require morphophonemic insertion of `argument indicators' such as -ing and that. (These were termed the `trace' of `incremental transformations' in Harris 1965 and 1968.) 3 The base generates a sublanguage which is informationally complete while containing no paraphrases. This is at the expense of redundancy and other stylistic awkwardness, so that utterances of any complexity in the base sublanguage are unlikely to be encountered in ordinary discourse. As in prior reports of H's work, base sentences are all assertions, other forms such as questions and imperatives being derived from underlying performatives I ask, I request, and the like. 4 A well-defined system of reductions yields the other sentences of the language as paraphrases of base sentences. The reductions were called the `paraphrastic transformations', and `extended morphophonemics' in earlier reports. They consist of permutation of words (movement), zeroing, and morphophonemic changes of phonological shape. Each reduction leaves a `trace' so that the underlying redundancies of the base sublanguage are recoverable. Linearization of the operator-argument dependencies--in English either `normal' SVO or a includes much of what is in the lexicon in generative `topicalizing' linear order--is accomplished by the reduction system, not the base. The reduction system includes much of what is in the lexicon in generative grammar (cf. Gross 1979). 5 Metalinguistic information required for many reductions, such as coreferentiality and lexical identity, is expressed within the language by conjoined metalanguage sentences, rather than by a separate grammatical mechanism such as subscripts. Similarly, `shared knowledge' contextual and pragmatic information is expressed by conjoined sentences (including ordinary dictionary definitions) that are zeroable because of their redundancy. [Harris's book Mathematical Structures of Language (Wiley 1968) shows that the metalanguage of natural language necessarily is contained within the language.] 6 The set of possible arguments for a given operator (or vice-versa) is graded as to acceptability. These gradings correspond with differences of meaning in the base sublanguage, and thence in the whole language. They diverge in detail from one sublanguage or subject-matter domain to another. Equivalently, the fuzzy set of `normal' cooccurrents for a given word differs from one such domain to another within the base sublanguage. In informal, intuitive terms, a constructive grammar generates sentences from the bottom up, beginning with word entry, whereas a generative grammar generates sentences from the top down, beginning with the abstract symbol S. The grammatical apparatus of constructive grammar (the rules together with their requirements and exceptions) is very simple and parsimonious. H's underlying structures, the rules for producing derived structures, and the structures to be assigned to surface sentences are all well defined. Consequently, H's argumentation about alternative ways of dealing with problematic examples has a welcome concreteness and specificity about it. In particular, one may directly assess the semantic wellformedness of base constructions and of each intermediate stage of derivation, as well as the sentences ultimately derived from them, because they are all sentences. By contrast, in generative argumentation, definitions of base structures and derived structures are always subject to controversy because the chief principle for controlling them is linguists' judgments of paraphrase relations among sentences derived from them. Even if one could claim to assess the semantic wellformedness of abstract underlying structures, these are typically so ill-defined as to compel us to rely almost totally on surface forms to choose among alternative adjustments to the base or to the system of rules for derivation. And as we all know, a seemingly minor tweak in the base or derivation rules can and usually does have major and largely unforeseen consequences for the surface forms generated by the grammar. This model of language offers an interesting approach to the problem brought up by Young in V2 #162, 174: how to represent the meaning of words without (circularly) using words? Most approaches amount to what I call `translation semantics': having found a set of language-universal semantic primes, one translates sentences of a given natural language into those primes and, voila'!, one has represented the `meaning' of those NL sentences. Let us ignore the difficulty of finding a set of semantic universals (a bit of hubris there, what!). The `representation of meaning' is itself a proposition in a more-or-less artificial language that has its own presumably very simple syntax (several varieties of logic are promoted as most suitable) and--yes--its own semantics. Logics boil `meaning' down to sets of `values' on propositions, such as true/false. `But my system', rejoins Young, `uses actual nonverbal modalities, it has real hooks into the neurological and cognitive processes that human beings use to understand and manipulate not only language, but all other experience as well'. That may be. It does beg the question to what degree cognitive processes and even neurological processes are molded by language and culture. (In Science 224:1325-1326 Nottebohm reports that the part of the forebrain of adult canaries responsible for singing becomes twice as large coincident with (a) increased testosterone and (b) learning of songs. This is the same whether the testosterone increase is annually in the Spring or experimentally, and the latter even in females, who consequently learn to sing songs as if they were males. Vrenson and Cardozo report in Brain Research 218:79-97 experiments indicating that both the size and shape of synapses in the visual cortices of adult rabbits changed as a result of visual training. Cotman and Nieto-Sampedro survey research on synapse growth and brain plasticity in adult animals in Annual Review of Psychology 33:371-401. Roger Walsh documents other research of this sort in his book Towards an Ecology of Brain. Conventional wisdom of brain science, that no new neurons are formed after infancy, is unwise.) The padres of yore surveyed the primitive languages around their missions and found so many degenerate forms of Latin. Their grammars lay these languages on the procrustean bed of inflections and declensions in a way that we see today as obviously ethnocentric and downright silly. We run the same risk today, because like those padres we cannot easily step out of the cultural/cognitive matrix with which we are analyzing and describing the world. Ask a fish to describe water: the result is a valid `insider's view', but of limited use to nonfish. Mr. Chomsky characterized his mentor in linguistics as an Empiricist and himself as a Rationalist, and in the Oedipal struggle which ensued mother Linguistics has got screwed. Given that systems based on constituent analysis are inherently overstructured, with layers of pseudo-hierarchy increasingly remote from the relatively concrete words and morphemes of language, an innate language-learning device is ineluctable: how else could a child learn all of that complexity in so short a time on so little and so defective evidence? The child cannot possibly be an Empiricist, she must be a Rationalist. Given a biologically innate language-acquisition device, there must be a set of linguistic universals that all children everywhere come into the world just knowing, and all languages must be specialized realizations of those archetypes--phenotypes of that genotype, as it were. (Chomsky did not set out to `define' natural language but to explain it. It is principally because his `underlying', `innate' constructs have a connection to empirical data that is remote at best--rather like the relation of a programmer's spec to compiled binary--that they appear to be (are?) definitions.) But consider a model in which the structure of language is actually quite simple. Might the characteristics of that model not turn out to be those of some general-purpose cognitive `module'? I believe Harris's model, sketched above, presents us this opportunity. Now about Jerry Fodor's book The Modularity of Mind, which Young mentions. The following is from the review by Matthei in Language 60.4:979, F presents a theory of the structure of the mind in which two kinds of functionally distinguishable faculties exist: `vertical' faculties (modules) and `horizontal' faculties (central processes). . . . F identifies the modules with the `input systems, whose function is to interpret information about the outside world and to make it available to the central cognitive processes. They include [five modules for] the perceptual systems . . . and [one for] language. . . . The central processes, as horizontal faculties, can be functionally distinguished from modular processes because their operations cross content domains. The paradigm example of their operation is the fixation of belief, as in determining the truth of a sentence. What one believes depends on an evaluation of what one has seen, heard, etc., in light of background information. . . . . . . the condition for successful science is that nature should have joints to carve it at: relatively simple subsystems which can be artificially isolated and which behave, in isolation, in something like the way that they behave in situ. (128) [The above, by the way, suggests that, while studying language in isolation--severing its `joints' with other systems--may be of limited interest to AI researchers seeking to model language users' performance, rather than their competence, it is not `scientifically unhealthy'. It also points to the central problem of semantics, as Matthei points out . . .] Modules, F says, satisfy this condition; central processes do not. If true, this is bad news for those who wish to study semantics. The burden which F puts on them is that they must demonstrate that computational formalisms exist which can overcome the problems he enumerates. These formalisms will have to be invented, because F maintains that no existing formalisms are capable of solving the problems. I, too, feel that notions of modules and modularity, or at least Fodor's attempt to consolidate them, make a great deal of sense. However, the caveat about the study of semantics underscores my contention that semantics properly must be based on an `acceptability model': a body of knowledge stated in sentences in the informationally complete sublanguage of Harris's base, whose acceptability is known. This is akin to a `truth model' in aletheic approaches to semantics in logic. It is also very simply conceived of as a database such as is constructed by Sager's LSP systems at NYU. We should note that the sentences of this base sublanguage correspond very closely across languages (cf. e.g. the English-Korean comparison in Harris's 1968 book), and that the vocabulary of the base sublanguage is a subset of that of the whole language (allowing for derivation, morphological degeneracy, and the like), much closer to Young's categories than the vocabulary with which he expresses so much frustration. There is one pointer I can give to another version of `translation semantics' that probably satisfies Young's sense of `nonverbal': Leonard Talmy developed an elaborate system for representing the semantics and morphological derivation of some pretty diverse languages in his (1974?) PhD dissertation at UC Berkeley. The languages included Atsugewi (neighbor and cousin to the Native American language I worked on), Spanish, and Yiddish. He went to SRI after graduation, but I have no idea where he is now or what he is doing. Bruce Nevin (bn@bbncch) ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: COMSAT 20-DEC-1984 01:34 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a003076; 19 Dec 84 15:44 EST Date: Wed 19 Dec 1984 11:19-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #179 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Thu, 20 Dec 84 00:40 EST AIList Digest Wednesday, 19 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 179 Today's Topics: AI Tools - Micro-PROLOG & SmallTalk AI Systems, Applications - Expert Legal Systems & Intelligent Skimmer, Planning - Constraint Propagation and Design, Reports - SEAI Publications, Politics - Visitors from USSR, Lab Description - NRL, Workshop - Logic and Computer Science ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Dec 1984 17:36 EST From: Chunka Mui Subject: micro-PROLOG info request We are looking for PROLOG packages which run on micros, especially the IBM PC. If you are familiar with any PROLOG interpreters for the PC, especially one with a tutorial package, I appreciate any information that you could give me. Thanks, Chunka Mui Chunka%mit-oz@mit-mc ------------------------------ Date: 17 Dec 84 12:21:53 EST From: Mike.Rychener@CMU-RI-ISL2 Subject: SmallTalk AI systems? [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] Does anyone know of any successful AI applications coded in SmallTalk? This was stimulated by the new Tektronix AI machine, whose blurb touts its SmallTalk as useful for developing expert systems. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Dec 1984 12:21-EST From: Alexander.Hauptmann@CMU-CS-G.ARPA Subject: expert legal systems? I am looking for references to publications about expert systems for legal reasoning. If you know of anybody who has done work in this area, please let me know (Alexander.Hauptmann@CMU-CS-G.ARPA). Among other things, I have heard that Roger Schank has done work in this area, but have been unable to find citations. Thanks. Alex. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Dec 84 06:44:45 EST From: Robert.Thibadeau@CMU-CS-H Subject: expert legal system [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] Extensive work in legal reasoning was done by Thorne McCarty. Thorne published in the Harvard Law Review back in 1977ish. His topic was legal reasoning in corporate tax law -- one of the areas where the Supreme Court effectively makes the law. Thorne, educated at Harvard in Law and Stanford in AI, and a tenured professor of Law at Rochester, evaluated Yale, way back, but decided to do his AI work at Rutgers. While I regard Roger Shank as absolutely excellent, I find it unfortunate that like natural language understanding systems vis a vis Yorick Wilks, belief systems vis a vis Chuck Schmidt and N. Sridharan, Memory vis a vis 100 years of thought in German and British psychology, we find now Roger implied at the leading edge in legal reasoning. Roger does good work, but he takes a long time to see the light and he tends to ignore his surround. I would hope the people on the frontiers not be forgotten this time around. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Dec 84 16:05:04 EST From: BIESEL@RUTGERS.ARPA Subject: Intelligent skimmer suggestion. As the volume of mail in this and other lists increases I find that I spend more and more time only skimming the text, searching for the message or two that is of interest to me. It occurs to me that an intelligent program for skimming text would be of some help in this. This program would scan a message, break up its sentences into grammatical tokens, and would first display only nouns and verbs - in their correct places on the screen. As the text scrolls upward adjectives, adverbs and pronouns appear, and by the time the text has traversed 2/3 of the screen, all words in each sentence are filled in. A smarter system would also keep track of the rate at which CTL-s/CTL-Q is sent, and adjust its transfer rate accordingly. A really smart program would keep track of keywords in those pieces of text which the user actually reads, determined by how often he slows down the skimming presentation, and would automatically present more fleshed out versions of messages which contained such keywords. There is no good reason why text has to be displayed in a letter- sequential form. We have a whole 2-D array to work with; let's try to use it to enhance rather than obfuscate communication. Biesel@rutgers ------------------------------ Date: Saturday, 15 December 1984 03:46:38 EST From: Duvvuru.Sriram@cmu-ri-cive.arpa Subject: Planning, Constraint Propagation and Design A part of the January 1983 SIGART newsletter was dedicated to Planning. A number of abstracts on (then) current research was compiled by Ann Robinson. I would like to add the following to Steinberg's equation about design: Heuristic Knowledge (HK) + Well-structured Programs (Algorithms) (WP) = Good Engineering Programs (GEP) If we add Causal knowledge (CK) to the LHS of above equation then we have HK + WP + CK = EEP (Effecient Engineering Programs) Any comments? Has anyone tried the task suspension method instead of constraint propagation? Task suspension works in the following manner (there is more to it): IF a constraint in a certain part of the design cannot be satisfied THEN suspend that task and get the values needed to satisfy the constraint In other words if you are designing Module-1 and find that there is a constraint relating Module-1 to Module-2 then suspend the task of performing Module-1 and design that part of Module-2 which satisfies the constraint. I tried this in structural design [1] using a Hearsay-type approach. However, I ran into problems when a constraint involved interaction between 3 or more components. [1] ALL-RISE : A Case Study in Constraint-Directed Design, Working Paper, Department of Civil Engineering, C-MU, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Sriram ------------------------------ Date: Tue 18 Dec 84 10:47:20-PST From: Ken Laws Subject: SEAI Publications A brochure from the SEAI Institute has crossed my desk. They are offering a two-volume survey of commercial and near-commercial AI systems as of August 1984. The two 200-page surveys, AI Applications for Manufacturing and AI Applications for Business Management, include 136 products and in-house systems at over 100 corporations, including 28 expert-system toolkits and 10 natural-language systems. The reports are $110 each, or $200 together. SEAI also offers a three-volume set on Machine Vision for Robotics and Automated Inspection and several other reports on robots in industry, AI, expert systems, and automated guided vehicle systems. You can contact them at Box 590, Madison, GA 30650, (404) 342-9638. [Note: I have no connection with the company, and pass this along only in the hopes that it will be of use to the Arpanet or AI research communities. I obviously cannot report on every AI book offered by every publisher, but see no harm in forwarding book reviews or notices about obscure reports. Correspondence about this policy should be directed to AIList-Request@SRI-AI. -- KIL] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Dec 84 21:34:41 PST From: Judea Pearl Subject: Visitors from USSR I wish to share with the readers of the AI-Digest this letter, which I wrote to Professor Viktor V. Aleksandrov, Head, Leningraad Research Computer Center, who is currently visiting the U.S. and who is particularly interested in meeting AI researchers. Dear Professor Alexandrov, I would have liked very much to meet you during your current visit to UCLA, but the following circumstances will not allow me to do so in good faith: I have received from the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) a long list of Soviet computer scientists who, for the past several years, have been barred from scientific activity and have been denied permission to participate in scientific meetings, domestic as well as international. Some of these people would like to present papers at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence which will take place at UCLA, August 1985, but will be prevented from leaving your country. I am particularly familiar with the stories of: Alexander Lerner, Moscow Isai Goldstein, Tbilisi Gregory Goldstein, Tbilisi whom I met at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence - 1973, Tbilisi, Georgia, and with whom I tried to keep in touch. To my dismay, I find these three cited in the 1984 Report of the ACM Committee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights as being harrassed and prevented from engaging in scientific activities. In 1973, I personally witnessed Isai Goldstein being barred from entering the lecture hall of the Tbilisi conference, so I feel obliged to express my concern that today, eleven years later, the method of professional deprivation is still practiced in your country. Although I would like to contribute to improved scientific cooperation between our two countries, my understanding has been that a prerequisite to true cooporation is the freedom for individuals to engage in scientific pursuits and to communicate their findings to other scientists. Your government apparently has a different perception of cooperation, and I will be happy to discuss with you these differences. However, because you are an official Soviet visitor, I cannot meet with you in good faith to engage in a purely professional discussion. To do so would be to betray Professor Lerner, who personally pleaded with me to refrain from participation in U.S.-USSR cooperative programs until minimum standards of scientific freedom are agreed upon. I hope you understand my position and will convey my regrets to your colleagues at the Leningrad Computer Research Center. Yours Sincerely, Judea Pearl Professor, Computer Science Dpt. University of California Los Angeles A note to the reader: The 1984 report of the ACM Committee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights is available from my office. It is scheduled for publication in the January-85 issue of the Communications of the ACM. If you meet with Professor Alexandrov, or other Soviet visitors, you may find it appropriate to express your sensitivity to two allegations made in the ACM report: 1. That Soviet scientists are dismissed from their jobs (or demoted) once they apply for exit visas. 2. That these scientists are prevented from attending professional meetings (even in the privacy of their homes) or from submitting papers to international meetings, e.g., IJCAI-83. If you kindly send me a summary of Professor Alexandrov's replies, especially regarding the practices at his own Institute, I will be glad to bring them to the attention of the ACM Committee. J.Pearl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 84 16:30:45 est From: Rod Johnson Subject: Lab Description - NRL (Computer Science & Systems Branch) [Edited by Laws@SRI-AI.] NAVAL RESEARCH LABORATORY Computer Science and Systems Branch The Computer Science and Systems Branch of NRL is active in: >> software engineering >> computer security >> information theory >> search theory >> expert systems >> message processing >> software measurement >> speech and signal processing >> formal software specifications. Our interests also include performance modeling and evaluation, human- computer interfaces, and program specification and verification tools. OUR GROUP is small, close-knit, and informal, with a research staff of 22 members; 9 hold PhDs. Attendance at conferences and publication in the open literature are encouraged. There are ample opportunities for educational support toward graduate degrees. Several branch members also teach at local universities. COMPUTING RESOURCES at NRL are being expanded to include a Cray X-MP/12 system. This unique system will include a front end consisting of a cluster of VAX 11/785s with connections to the ARPANET and to a broadband network linking other NRL computers. The Branch maintains VAX 11/780, Sun, and VAX 11/750 machines running UNIX and VMS, and a Symbolics Lisp Computer. Each office includes a terminal with a high-speed link to these systems, which are also linked to the ARPANET. THE NAVAL RESEARCH LABORATORY is a government laboratory located on a 129-acre campus on the banks of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. It was founded at the suggestion of Thomas Edison more than 60 years ago and carries out a wide variety of basic and applied research. The Washington area offers a temperate climate and an outstanding cultural environment, including the museums of the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and several excellent professional and collegiate theatre groups. For more information, contact: Mr. S. H. Wilson Head, Computer Science and Systems Branch Code 7590 Phone: (202) 767-2518 Naval Research Laboratory Arpanet: Wilson@NRL-CSS Washington, D.C. 20375 uucp: ...!decvax!nrl-css!wilson ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Dec 84 16:07:59 est From: ukma!marek@ANL-MCS.ARPA (Wiktor Marek) Subject: Workshop - Logic and Computer Science FIRST COMMUNICATION Workshop on LOGIC AND COMPUTER SCIENCE Lexington,KY, June 9-14 1984. In the first half of June 1985 a workshop on Logic and Computer Science will take place in Lexington, Kentucky. The workshop will take 4 and 1/2 working days. The workshop will cover those parts of Computer Science where an active part is played by logic-inclined research- ers, in particular: Theory of Computation Theory of Databases Artificial Intelligence Theory of Operating Systems (Temporal Logic) Program Verification Logic Programming All the inqueries should be sent to: Logic and Computer Science Department of Computer Science University of Kentucky Lexington, KY, 40506-0027 (606) 257-3961 or: Logic and Computer Science ARPA: "ukma!logic-and-cs"@ANL-MCS (Note the quote marks.) UUCP-> unmvax -----------\ UUCP-> research ----------\____ !anlams --\ UUCP-> boulder -----------/ >-!ukma!logic-and-cs UUCP-> decvax!ucbvax ----/ / cbosgd!hasmed!qusavx --/ Organizational Committee: Forbes Lewis Wiktor Marek Anil Nerode Lexington, December 1984 ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: CSVPI 22-DEC-1984 03:28 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a017955; 21 Dec 84 16:59 EST Date: Fri 21 Dec 1984 10:18-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #180 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Sat, 22 Dec 84 03:25 EST AIList Digest Friday, 21 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 180 Today's Topics: Humor - Jokes & Limericks & Linguistics & D/B Theory & Lardware & Computer Museum Traveling Exhibit ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu 13 Dec 84 09:21:09-EST From: Bob Hall Subject: AI Jokes [Forwarded from the MIT bboard by SASW@MIT-MC.] Announcing the only annual AI Joke Contest Come up with a good cocktail-party-worthy joke about some aspect of AI and win a U.C., Berkeley T-shirt! Enter as many times as you like. Winner (exactly one) will be judged solely on the number of ``HA''s evoked from the impartial panel of judges. Ties will be broken by earliest postmark and contest ends after a sufficiently long time with no entries. To be eligible for a prize, you must include your address and t-shirt size. Entries become property of the judges. To Enter: Mail via US Mail your entry in any legible format to AI Jokes 1717 Allston Way Berkeley, CA 94703 Please do not send any entries to me, as I am just posting this. I can, however, answer limited questions on this, like "Is it legit?" (Yes.) Enter Now! ------------------------------ Date: Tue 18 Dec 84 16:38:26-PST From: C.S./Math Library Subject: Call for Computer Science Limericks--ABACUS [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] The journal Abacus will pay $25 for each original limerick related to computing that is accepted and published. Send entries to Mr. Eric A. Weiss, Box 222, Springfield, PA 19064. Submissions should be better than the following samples: Said a recent B.S. in E.E. "Three things are important to me: How much do you pay? Must I work every day? And the proof of correctness of C." A professor (whose last name is Wirth), After seeing Pascal through its birth, Said, "It's better than Snobol, More structured than Cobol, And soon will take over the earth!" This is strictly a public service announcement for those students who want to make some extra money. I will make no comments about the above examples nor my personal view of limericks in general. Harry Llull ------------------------------ Date: 11 Dec 84 19:29:24 GMT From: sms@eisx.UUCP (Samuel Saal) Subject: Oxymorons, Pleonasms and various forms of Bull [Forwarded from net.jokes by SASW@MIT-MC.] From "More on Oxymorons, Foolish Wisdom in Words and Pictures". Oxymoron: two antithetical words, adj vs. noun. eg. Living Death (can be extended: They agreed to disagree) Pleonasm: sort of the opposite of an oxymoron, the adj or adv agrees with the noun. eg. Wet Water (what else could water be?) Tautology: a pleonasm whose terms are joined by a copula. eg. At the center is the middle. Bull: the linguistic name for such linguistic pearls of logic, enabling one to label examples of: - self-contradiction (To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant). - self reference (Brain: an apparatus with which we think that we think). - the obvious (Who died? I'm not sure, but I think it's the one in the hearse). - "read the sentence twice and be amazed that it was written" (The sudden rise in temperature was responsible for the intolerable heat) (Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore, it's too crowded) Sort the following according to the above rules: 1. The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. (W.C.Fields) 2. You will always find something in the last place you look. 3. He hadn't a single redeeming vice. (Oscar Wilde) 4. Nothing succeeds like success. (Alexandre Dumas) 5. New Innovation. 6. In these matters the only certainty is that there is nothing certain. (Pliny the Elder) 7. For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. (Abraham Lincoln) 8. Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. (Samuel Goldwyn) 9. To visually see. 10. Bachelors' wives and old maids' children are always perfect. (Nicolas Chamfort) 11. One effect of the better lighting is the improved visibility. 12. He lived his life to the end. 13. I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming that I have never made one. (James Gordon Bennett) 14. She's genuinely bogus. HINT: There are 2 examples of each category (not counting "Bull" but rather the subdivisions mentioned) "Words are but a window on the word...." Sam Saal ...ihnp4!eisx!sms ------------------------------ Date: 08 Dec 84 20:27 CDT From: Maxwell_L%VANDERBILT.MAILNET@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Reply-to: Maxwell_L%VANDERBILT.MAILNET@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA, Subject: Language Deficiencies There is a legend of a remote tribe of Indians in the Peruvian Andes, the language of which has no word for "No." Should a member of this tribe wish to communicate a negative response, he will nod his head and say "I'll get back to ya." :-) ------------------------------ Date: 17 December 1984 2105-EST From: Jeff Shrager@CMU-CS-A Subject: Discipline&Bondage Theory [Forwarded by Laws@SRI-AI from a file typed from hardcopy and made available by Jeff Shrager@CMU-CS-A. The original author is James A. Matisoff of Berkeley.] Announcing a new theory of language: DISCIPLINE AND BONDAGE THEORY Ffositam A. Semaj Yelekreb February 23, 1984 [APPLICATION TO THE GROAN FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.] It has become increasingly clear that the current linguistic theories are inadequate to explain much of anything about language. Yesterday, however, I conceived a new theory of language, which is, finally, the correct one. Already I have found the solutions to virtually all linguistic problems. A few details remain to be worked out, but this can certainly be accomplished during the grant period. Despite its explanatory and predictive power, my theory rest on a very few simple ideas. (1) The chief organizing principle of language is CONTROL. That is to say, certain words should boss others around. This idea is perhaps not entirely new, but my theory is the first to carry it one step further, to the meta-theoretical level: (2) The linguist must control language, not vice versa. At no time must the theoretician allow himself to be hog-tied by mere data. Too much unmotivated detail clogs the mind, and can led to "control slippage." Endless time can be wasted on brute undisciplined facts. That leas to our third axiom: (3) The most highly valued theory is based on the most limited and carefully selected data, preferably data gained from solitary introspection by the linguist himself. (In difficult cases, however, it is not methodologically unsound to seek confirmation of one's grammaticality judgments from other linguists, provided they are working within the same theory. It is for this reason that I have included within this proposal a request for funds for consultation in D/B Theory at other institutions.) D/B Theory is correct precisely because it succeeds in *controlling* and *dominating* language. The unique terminology required by our theory reflects this orientation. (See below, GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS.) D/B Theory relates in the most efficient way imaginable to its data base. I have, in fact, succeeded in formulating a single sentence that is so rich in theoretical implications, that once it is properly disciplined-and-bound it will serve all by itself as the corpus of data for the whole theory. Here it is: (4) Helmut asked her if Fatima could say wow what a nice day to them sorta only if the beige one circumcised her with a knout. It need hardly be emphasized that my theory also applies to other languages than English, indeed universally to the class of all possible languages. Firm plans are in place to have (4) translated into French during the next (1985-86) grant period. On a more mundane level, note that D/B Theory uses much better names in its example sentences than any other theory. While some theories use anodyne names like John and Mary, and others offer unmotivatedly cutesy-poo ones (e.g., Mortimer, Seymour, Snurdley), D/B Theory goes in exclusively for names like Butch, Helmut and Fatima, thereby enhancing its predictive power in pragmatic situations where discipline and control are at issue. Notice also that (4) could never have been arrived at by the "butterfly-collector" method of recording natural utterances. Fortunately, D/B Theory enabled me to predict that the odds of (4) occurring in a natural conversation would be quite low. If I had waited around to hear this sentence uttered spontaneously I could never have formulated my theory so rapidly, and would probably have missed the application deadline. D/B Theory enables us to account in a principled way for the otherwise puzzling fact that (4) is fully grammatical, while (5), (6), and (7) are totally unacceptable: (5) * Helmut sorta circumcised her with a knout. (6) * Wow what a nice day sorta. (7) * Helmut could say beige. Even previous theories of language recognize that (7) violates a felicity condition whereby the features [+male] and [+beige] are mutually exclusive. If the feature specification for "Helmut" does indeed include [+male], these theories would predict, quite correctly in this case, that (7) is infelicitous. Only D/B Theory, however, explains why the acceptability of (7) increases when it is disciplined by a strappadoed clause, as in (4). Space constraints preclude our going into further detail here, and in any event this discussion must necessarily appear somewhat abstract before the special terminology required by D/B theory has been mastered. As a warning to the reader, the following Glossary of Technical Terms has been provided. Learn them, and learn them now! GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS CAT-O'-NINE-TAIL-MENT. A clause which is reluctant to fit into our framework may be whipped into shape by this operation, according to which any nine constituents may be entailed by any nine others. Thus (8) may be cat-o'nine-tailed into (9): (8) Fatima sucked the sherbert through a straw while her Shiite eunuch guards leafed through a stack of girlie magazines without much interest. (9) The Queen of England opened Parliament with a knout. As always, however, rigorous disciplinary techniques like this should not be resorted to prematurely. It is usually advisable to try FROTTAGE first, in order to relax the clause and throw it off its guard. CLAUSE-ABUSE. A cover-term for several more specific operations described below. Occasionally a deeply embedded clause may be forced into self-abuse to avoid subjugation or subincision at the hands of a clause that ranks higher on the BOUNDEDNESS HIERARCHY. CLAUSE-CASTRATION. A clause is said to have undergone castration when certain members have been removed in order to allow a rule to work more insightfully. Thus (11) may be generated from (10) by this operation, which is actually justified on independent grounds anyway, so that no special ad hoc rules need be added to the grammar: (10) What's all this ballyhoo about that balloon that was embellished by the ballistic missile? (11) What's all this yhoo about that oon that was embellished by the istic missile? Note that our theory correctly predicts that "embellishment" does not satisfy the conditions for the operation of this rule, despite its surface similarity to the castratable constituents. "Embellished" therefore survives (temporarily) to undergo other sorts of clause-abuse that occur later in the grammar. CLAUSE-CRUCIFIXTION. A crucified clause is one which has been generated by entailment. The head of the clause remains free to move slightly, but the rest is bound tightly to the tree. Ex-cruciated constituents are usually found to be much more amenable to persuasion than before the operation applied. CLAUSE-FROTTAGE. An important preliminary discourse strategy that opens clauses up for further discipline. Unlike its extreme form, KEELHAULING, which can involve scraping the clause up one side and down the other, FROTTAGE requires only a light movement from left to right and back again on the nodule which is F-commanded by the subjugating member. CLAUSE-STRAPPADO. The weakest NP's hands are tied behind its back and attached to a pulley by means of which it is pulled out from under the VP that had been disciplining it and raised to the next higher clause, after which it is suddenly dropped halfway back down with a jerk. Thus (12) may be strappadoed into (13). (12) Butch said fuck you or I'll take away your teddybear with a knife. (13) Butch said fuck you, teddybear, or with a knife I'll take yours away, jerk. Note that jerk-insertion must be ordered with respect to frottage, to avoid generating such ungrammatical strings as: (14) *Butch said fickledy-fuckledy you, teddldy-bearidy, jerk. PROCRUSTEAN PRUNING. A powerful process whereby unwanted constituents are lopped off either from the beginning or the end of a clause, or both. This is related to Pham Phuc Dong's 'constituent gerrymandering', though it is much more rigorously applied within the D/B framework. Thus (16) may be derived from (15) by "equi-PP": (15) The chomeur had no place to go during the earthquake, so he sat down by default, the chomeur had no place to go during the. (16) Earthquake, so he sat down by default. The questionable grammaticality of (16) is accounted for by the fact that neither the pre-pruned nor the post-pruned constituents were willing to cross the picket line. PROTO-HYPE THEORY. Proto-hype theory is an important adjunct to D/B analysis. Generally speaking, it enables us to recognize whether a token is behaving satisfactorily as a member of its type. (If a constituent is lacking in discipline, we have ways to make it talk.) The following data are from French: (17) *Mordxe hot zix nebex aroysgeshnitn di kishkes mit a tsibele-kuxn. (Mortimer ripped out his guts on a buzz-saw, poor guy.) Proto-hype theory enables us to predict that "tsibele-kuxn", literally: "onion-roll", is nowhere near being a prototypical cutting instrument (though sometimes in particular pragmatic situations poppy seeds may be rather sharp). We thus reject (17) as ungrammatical. TOUGH B-MOVEMENT. Applies when a clause has become constipated through lack of roughage. This is one of the more severe operations permitted by our theory, and should only be used after milder processes like frottage and proto-hyping have failed to dislodge the construction. Consider the following: (18) *To do it squeezing over a pit full of viper without bran muffins or prune juice is tough duty. This is clearly ungrammatical and infelicitous as it stands, though, as my theory predicts, a perfectly good reading is obtained if tough b-movement is not allowed to apply until after the sentence has been sphincter-bound, as in (19): (19) It is tough duty to do it without squeezing bran muffins or prune juice over a pit full of vipers. The 3-way ambiguity of this sentence is likewise predicted by the theory. *** All previous linguistic theories have been thinly disguised notational variants of the flabbily sentimental "philology" of the past. With Discipline and Bondage Theory, we serve notice on language that it is to be coddled no longer. Broad new vistas of control have opened up. Let 1984 be the year that we get back at language once and for all. MAJ, Principle Investigator. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 84 14:06:32 cst From: "Walter G. Rudd" Subject: Architecture for Malogrithms Kathy Daley, one of our graduate students, suggests the following: Since the "hardware" will be running "underneath" the malgorithm, why not call it "UNDERWARE"????? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 84 07:09:02 pst From: Paul A. Ehrler Subject: Lardware My nomination for Lardware of the month goes to IBM. I recall seeing a reference to an attempt of theirs to build a computer without an ALU. The trick was to do everything with table look up, even arithmetic. I guess they reasoned that first graders are pretty good at that sort of thing, so why not automate it. It worked to some extent, but needless to say was not an overwhelming commercial success. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Dec 84 14:41:50 est From: Walter Hamscher Subject: Computer Museum Traveling Exhibit [Forwarded from the MIT bboard by SASW@MIT-MC.] NOON, FRIDAY, IN THE 8TH FLOOR PLAYROOM THE BOSTON COMPUTER MUSEUM In conjunction with THE REVOLTING SEMINAR SERIES Presents a traveling exhibit especially for Graduate Students COMPUTER POWER AND HUMAN FASHION Featuring THE VON NEUMANN TURTLENECK Plus NILS NILSSON'S ALPHA-BETA CUTOFFS Also featuring a rare Huffman-clothes encoating and a dress once worn by Herb Simon's wandering Aunt. Hosts: Bonnie Dorr and Dave Braunegg. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: CSVPI 21-DEC-1984 22:10 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a018588; 21 Dec 84 20:14 EST Date: Fri 21 Dec 1984 14:27-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #181 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Fri, 21 Dec 84 22:04 EST AIList Digest Saturday, 22 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 181 Today's Topics: Math - Fermat's Last Theorem, AI Tools - XLISP Interpreter & PROLOG & Expert System Tools, Reports - SEAI Survey & Winograd on Semantics & Barwise on Logic, Opinion - Skeptical Viewpoints, Seminar - REVE: Solving Problems in Equational Theories (CSLI), Course - Reasoning About Knowledge (SU) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 December 1984 1724-EST From: Oswald Wyler@CMU-CS-A Subject: Fermat's last Theorem [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] The first two sentences of an AMS abstract, 816-11-188, by Chen Wenjen, read: The missing proof of Fermat's Last Theorem has been rediscovered. The proof is elementary, zigzag, and truly wonderful as claimed by Fermat nearly three and a half centuries ago. Anyone know more about this? ------------------------------ Date: 19 Dec 1984 2001 PST From: Larry Carroll Reply-to: LARRY@JPL-VLSI.ARPA Subject: Xlisp interpreter Some time back David Betz announced he'd placed into the public domain a Lisp interpreter with object-oriented extensions. Where is it stored in FTPable form? Thanks. Larry @ jpl-vlsi ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 84 00:06 MST From: May%pco@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: Re Issue 179, "micro-PROLOG info request" Dr. George Luger, at the University of New Mexico, is developing a Prolog that runs on PC-compatibles. It is currently in beta-test. (no phone # available) Also, the University of York, Heslington, York, YO1 5DD, England, has a C&M Prolog that is written in standard Pascal. It requires three file-system-specific procedures to be written for the host, which is usually a minor job. The original version compiled cleanly under Turbo-Pascal but we haven't yet checked it out for correct execution. The same source compiled and executed cleanly on a mainframe host. Contact Mrs. Jenny Turner, Secretary, Software Technology Centre, telephone 0904 59861, or at the above address. (A few months ago, they were charging 200 Pounds.) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 84 15:20:44 pst From: weeks%ucbpopuli.CC@Berkeley (Harry Weeks) Subject: Prolog on Micros. There is an article in the December 1984 issue of Byte on `micro-Prolog', which runs on CP/M and MS-DOS machines (including the IBM PC). It is distributed in the United States by Programming Logic Systems, 31 Crescent Drive, Milford, Connecticutt 06460, 203 877 7988. -- Harry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 84 07:07:46 pst From: Paul A. Ehrler Subject: Expert System Tools Are there any head-to-head comparisons of the so-called 'fifth generation' expert system building tools like KEE, ART, S1, SRL, and LOOPS? I've heard that ART has been improved since the AAAI conference. The demo I saw then was not very informative, since they didn't have an extra Symbolics to put in their hotel suite for serious shoppers; I was more favorably impressed by KEE at the time. As for the others, first impressions are that S1 was out of date, SRL was underdeveloped and overpriced ($70K), and LOOPS was unsupported, but had lots of potential. Anything more concrete (performance, ease of use, robustness, support provided, etc) would be welcome, especially direct comparisons. If I missed any of importance (not of the EMYCIN generation, please), that would also be useful to know. Speaking of prices, are they serious about the exorbitant prices for secondary copies of the software? I can understand, given the tradition of whatever the market will bear, that something extra must be charged for more application, but we have a LAN of five 1108's all on the same project, and I can't see charging more for the secondary copies than the machines cost - that's a big reason we're using LOOPS now. Maybe they're thinking like the micro houses, assuming that since most of their customers are going to cheat, they'll use the honest suckers to subsidize. ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 20 December 1984 01:26:44 EST From: Duvvuru.Sriram@cmu-ri-cive.arpa Subject: SEAI Publications Another report by SEAI titled "Artificial Intelligence: A New Tool for Industry and Business" discusses a number of products in the market. The utility of this book, which costs $485, is summarized by Price (see SIGART Newsletter, Oct. 1984) as "it is expensive but it would cost more to assemble the same information. It is not directed towards researchers but managers who want to determine how AI can be effectively used in their business". I wonder if there is a significant difference in content between this one and the ones mentioned by Ken Laws! Sriram ------------------------------ Date: Wed 19 Dec 84 18:32:28-PST From: Dikran Karagueuzian Subject: Reports - Winograd & Barwise [Forwarded from the CSLI Newsletter by Laws@SRI-AI.] CSLI REPORTS ``Moving the Semantic Fulcrum'' by Terry Winograd (Report No. CSLI--84-17) has just been published. Report No. CSLI--84-2, ``The Situation in Logic--I'' by Jon Barwise, which has been out of print, is now available. To obtain a copy of these reports write to Dikran Karagueuzian, CSLI, Ventura Hall, Stanford 94305 or send net mail to Dikran at SU-CSLI. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Dec 84 13:03:55 CST (Tue) From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley Subject: Re: Personal Assistants -- a skeptical viewpoint [Forwarded from the Human-Nets Digest by Laws@SRI-AI.] > Dear sir--oh, my very dear sir. Is NOTHING going to cheer you > up? Can the micro revolution do nothing to help you? Nope, I'd rather be grumpy and play Devil's Advocate. Bah. Humbug. (Who is that odd fellow with the chains coming through my wall...?) > For me, I keep remembering what a joy Electric Pencil was after > typing millions of words on a Selectric; and while nothing that > has come after Pencil has been the quantum step up that Pencil > was in 1977, there has been steady improvement. Computers make > my life simpler. (Well, actually more complex; but I get more > done, and spend more of my time doing that which I LIKE > doing...) I have similar memories of encountering computerized text editing for the first time, back in 1972. I've never written anything substantial on a typewriter since, and have no wish to. I do appreciate the vast improvement computers have brought, and the continuing improvements in the situation. What I do dislike is sales hype, or the equivalent, which claims that innovation X is going to bring about Nirvana here on Earth in just a few years. I.e., Real Soon Now. (Yes, I read and enjoy your column in Byte.) In particular, the next time somebody tells me that applied AI and/or the Fifth Generation is going to solve all my problems, I think I'm gonna throw up. The AI folks are notorious for exuberant promises followed by failure and disillusionment. I would have thought they, of all people, would be a bit more cautious about predicting the Millenium yet again. Nope, same old snake oil... What I should have made clearer, in my earlier note, was that I do expect some very interesting by-products from the inevitable failures. I have no quarrel with anyone who merely predicts significant advances and the appearance of useful new tools. This cloud is indeed likely to have a silver lining, even though it's not going to be solid platinum as its proponents claim. Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry ------------------------------ Date: 20 December 1984 00:46-EST From: Jerry E. Pournelle Subject: Personal Assistants -- a skeptical viewpoint [Forwarded from the Human-Nets Digest by Laws@SRI-AI.] Ah well, I suppose I must agree regarding the hype. As to AI: there is a famous story. John McCarthy some years ago is said to have bought a Heathkit television for the Stanford AI lab. When it arrived a student eagerly fell upon it, but was restrained. "We will construct a robot to build the kit," McCarthy is said to have said. Last I heard the box was unopened. The story is probably apocryphal, but I do recall the Great Foreign Language Translation Revolution predicted in the 60's... ------------------------------ Date: Wed 19 Dec 84 18:32:28-PST From: Dikran Karagueuzian Subject: Seminar - REVE: Solving Problems in Equational Theories (CSLI) [Forwarded from the CSLI Newsletter by Laws@SRI-AI.] SUMMARY OF NOVEMBER 21 AREA C MEETING Topic: REVE: A system for solving problems in equational theories, based on term rewriting techniques Speaker: Jean-Pierre Jouannaud, Professor at University of NANCY, FRANCE, on leave at SRI-International and CSLI. Equational Logic has been adopted by mathematicians for a very long time and by computer scientists recently. Specifications in OBJ2, an ``object-oriented'' language designed and implemented at SRI-International, uses equations to express relations between objects. To express computations in this logic, equations are used one way, e.g. as rules. To make proofs with rules in this logic requires the so-called ``confluence'' property, which expresses that the result of a computation is unique, no matter the order the rules are applied. Proofs and computations are therefore integrated in a very simple framework. When a set of rules does not have the confluence property, it is augmented by new rules, using the so-called Knuth and Bendix completion algorithm, until the property becomes satisfied. This algorithm requires the set of rules to have the termination property, i.e., an expression cannot be rewritten forever. It has been proved that this algorithm allows one to perform as inductive proof without invoking explicitly an induction principle and to solve equations (unification) in the corresponding equational theory as well. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Dec 84 16:15:12 PST From: Joe Halpern Subject: Course on reasoning about knowledge I'll be teaching a course on reasoning about knowledge at Stanford in the winter quarter, along much the same lines as [my IBM-SJ] seminar. He are the details: Reasoning About Knowledge (CS400B) Knowledge seems to play a crucial role in such diverse areas as distributed systems, cryptography, and artificial intelligence. We will examine various attempts at formalizing reasoning about knowledge, and see to what extent they are applicable to the areas mentioned above. In particular we will consider such problems as resource-bounded reasoning, inconsistency of beliefs, belief revision, and knowledge representation. There is no text from the course; we will be concentrating on current research. Officially the course meets on Tuesdays in the winter quarter, from 2:45-5:00. I would be willing to consider moving that time to another afternoon (although I suspect it might be hard to reach agreement). It might be nice to push the meeting time forward to 1:30-3:45, so those interested can attend the CS Colloquium. I've enclosed a brief (tentative!) outline for the course. As of now, the emphasis is on material I'm most familiar with (i.e., papers I've written), but I would be interested in hearing suggestions from participants in the course on other material to cover. Auditors are welcome. Week 1 and 2: Philosophical background and thorough introduction to possible-worlds semantics for knowledge. References: W. Lenzen, Recent work in epistemic logic, Acta Philosophica Fennica, 1978. J.Y. Halpern and Y.O. Moses, A guide to the modal logics of knowledge and belief, to appear as an IBM RJ, 1985. Week 3: The "knowledge structures" approach References: R. Fagin, J.Y. Halpern, and M.Y. Vardi, A model-theoretic analysis of knowledge, in "Proceedings of the 25th Annual Conference of Foundations of Computer Science", 1984, pp. 268-278 Week 4: Knowledge in distibuted systems References: J.Y. Halpern and Y.O. Moses, Knowledge and common knowledge in a distributed environment, in "Proceedings of the 3rd ACM Conference on Principles of Distributed Computing", 1984; IBM RJ 4421, 1984. R. Strong and D. Dolev, Byzantine agreement, IBM RJ 3714, 1982. Weeks 5 and 6: Resource-bounded and incomplete knowledge, relevance logic, the "syntactic approach" References: H.J. Levesque, A logic of implicit and explicit belief, Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1984, pp. 198-202. K. Konolige, A deduction model of belief, Ph.D. Thesis, Stanford University, 1984. R. Fagin and J.Y. Halpern, Knowledge and awareness, unpublished manuscript, 1985. S. Shapiro and M. Wand, The relevance of relevance, Indiana University Technical Report No. 46, 1976. Weeks 7 and 8: Belief revision and non-monotonic reasoning References: D. McDermott and J. Doyle, Non-monotonic logic I, Artificial Intelligence 13, Vol. 1,2, 1980, pp. 41-72. R. Reiter, A logic for default reasoning, Artificial Intelligence 13, Vol. 1,2, 1980, pp. 81-132. J. McCarthy, Circumscription - a form of non-monotonic reasoning, Artificial Intelligence 13, Vol. 1,2, 1980, pp. 27-39. W.R. Stark, A logic of knowledge, Zeitschrift fur Mathematische Logik und Grundalagen der Mathematik 27, pp. 371-374, 1981. D. McDermott, Non-monotonic logic II: non-monotonic modal theories, Journal of the ACM, Vol. 29, No. 1, 1982, pp. 35-57 R.C. Moore, Semantical considerations on non-monotonic logic, SRI Technical Note 284, 1983. H.J. Levesque, A formal treatment of incomplete knowledge bases, Fairchild Technical Report No. 614, FLAIR Technical Report No. 3, 1982. K. Konolige, Circumscriptive ignorance, Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1982, pp. 202-204. J.Y. Halpern and Y.O. Moses, Towards a theory of knowledge and ignorance, Proceedings of Workshop on Non-monotonic Reasoning, 1984; IBM RJ 4448, 1984. R. Parikh, Monotonic and non-monotonic logics of knowledge, unpublished manuscript, 1984. Week 9: Knowledge bases References: H.J. Levesque, A formal treatment of incomplete knowledge bases, Fairchild Technical Report No. 614, FLAIR Technical Report No. 3, 1982. K. Konolige, A deduction model of belief, Ph.D. Thesis, Stanford University, 1984. Week 10: Knowledge and cryptography; puzzles References: M.J. Merritt, Cryptographic protocols, Ph.D. Thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1983. S. Goldwasser, S. Micali and C. Rackoff, Knowledge complexity, unpublished manuscript, 1984. X. Ma and W. Guo, W-JS: a modal logic about knowing, Proceedings of the 8th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1983. D. Dolev, J.Y. Halpern and Y.O. Moses, Cheating spice and other stories, unpublished manuscript, 1984. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: CSVPI 26-DEC-1984 21:32 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a002015; 26 Dec 84 3:30 EST Date: Tue 25 Dec 1984 23:39-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #182 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Wed, 26 Dec 84 21:24 EST AIList Digest Wednesday, 26 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 182 Today's Topics: AI Tools - Prolog for PCs, Linguistics - Oxymorons, Humor - Malgorithm Contest, Bindings - Navy Center for Applied Research in AI, News - Recent Articles, Opinion - Personal Assistants, Workstations - Very Inexpensive LISP Machine, Courses - Intelligent Tutoring Systems (SU) & Computational Semantics (SU) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 22 Dec 84 21:12 EST From: Tim Finin Subject: Prolog for PC-type machines Expert Systems Limited has a prolog for PC-type machines that seems pretty good. It is Clocksin&Melish compatible. We've run it with no problems on both a IBM-PC and a DEC Rainbow, so it will probably run on any MS-DOS machine. There is also a CP/M version. This is the prolog that Technowledge used to implement M1 in. The home address for the company is: Expert Systems Limited 9 West Way Oxford OX2 OJB England There is a U.S. affiliate, located in the Philadelphia area, that has the US rights. I don't have the address at the moment. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Dec 84 21:29 EST From: Tim Finin Subject: Oxymorons, Pleonasms and various forms of Bull Saul Gorn has published a compendium of material related to the recent note on "Oxymorons, Pleonasms and various forms of Bull" that he has collected in his 50 year career as a mathematician and computer scientist. It is available as "Self-Annihilating Sentences; Saul Gorn's Compendium of Rarely Used Cliches"; Technical Report MS-CIS-83-22. It can be obtained by writing: Publications Computer and Information Science The Moore School University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104 Tim ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Dec 84 14:53:45 mst From: jlg@LANL (Jim Giles) Subject: Contest It's the first annual Complete the Book Title Contest ( no prizes awarded, none were donated). 'Malgorithms + Data Scrambling = ___________________' First prize (which is worth twice as much as the other prizes) will be awarded to the person who guesses the author of the above work. Send answers to jlg@lanl.ARPA and I will summarize. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Dec 84 10:25:36 est From: Dennis Perzanowski Subject: erratum Please be advised of the following correction in the address for the Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence which was recently broadcast: U.S. Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence Naval Research Laboratory - Code 7510 Washington, DC 20375-5000 The address of the Civilian Personnel Office to which all resumes and inquiries should be sent is correct as printed in the announcement. Sorry for any inconvenience. Thank you. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Dec 84 12:46:37 cst From: Laurence Leff Subject: AI News The Institute, Volume 9 Number 1 January 1985 Page 10 Experts Envision New Applications for AI Technology on the Shop Floor Describes work for automatically constructing part programs for milling. Also discusses applications of AI to such industries as paperboard packaging Proccedings on an Expert System Session of Autofact 6 are available from SME, One SME Drive, P. O. Box 930, Dearborn, Mich. 48121 which includes papers on these subjects. Electronics Week, October 15 1984 page 14 Discusses various Fifth Generation projects in America and Japan IEEE Computer November 1984 Volume 17 No. 11 Page 117 Three-paragraph review of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Austin by Elaine Rich Page 114 summarizes talk by Robert Miller, senior vice president at Data General, on "personal expert systems" Page 65 The Library of Computer and Information Science is again offering the three volume Handbook of Artificial Intelligence for only $4.95 as a sign up bonus. Electronics Week October 29, 1984, page 34 Discusses Quintus Computer Systems Prolog systems and development environments for Prolog. Electronics Week September 24, 1984 page 59 Interview with Larry Harris who is president of Artificial Intelligence Corp., the people behind the Intellect natural language database interface Communications of the ACM December 1984 Volume 27 Number 12 page 1227 Discusses a solution to the travelling salesman problem with thousands of nodes. The solution was used for determing paths in drilling holes in PC boards. Uses a cluster-based approach. ------------------------------ Date: Fri 21 Dec 84 20:40:13-EST From: Wayne McGuire Subject: Personal Assistants I agree with Henry Spencer that many claims from the AI community are overblown, and that we need to maintain a healthy stance of skepticism about the Next Big Revolutionary Breakthroughs that are forecast every week. However: (1) I don't think the present generation of outliners, natural language interfaces, and free-form databases, which are some of the basic building blocks of idea processors, are, as you insist, a "fad." Products like Thinktank and Intellect are not vaporware: they have firmly established themselves in the marketplace, and are not going to disappear. They are a permanent and welcome fixture in the world of microcomputer and (in the case of Intellect) mainframe software. (2) Mitch Kapor's remarks about AI are not, as you put it, a lot of "marketing hype." As I understand it, a company has been spun off from Lotus which is doing serious research in natural language processing. That company will probably develop a product somewhat like Intellect or Clout which will become an essential element in future integrated software from Lotus. (3) A pencil and paper is fine, but I much prefer a Model 100 as a portable device for recording and shaping notes and ideas. A Model 100 with significantly greater memory, built-in idea processing software, and a connecter to an optical disk storage device would, I suspect, wean many people away from paper and pencils for good. (4) Building a powerful idea processor is very much a function of available memory. Framework, for instance, would be a much more effective product if the quality of its word processor and database management system could be raised to the level of ZyWrite II Plus and MDBS III. To acquire that kind of power would require an extra megabyte or two of memory. (5) The privacy issue in regard to optical disks is a red herring. The federal government already has easy access to much of the sensitive information which would be stored on a personal disk. A biodisk might give individuals an opportunity to know as much about themselves as the government does. -- Wayne McGuire ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 1984 00:07-EST From: Todd.Kueny@CMU-CS-G.ARPA Subject: Very Inexpensive LISP Machine I have recently been toying with the idea of very inexpensive lisp machines (VILM). The ideal VILM would support a hi-res display, a keyboard, mouse, RS-232/422 interface, floppies (5 1/4 or 3 1/2 inch), support interpreter, compiler, plus other handy functions (fasl, debugger, trace, maybe an object language), provide a window package (mulitple fonts, editor, etc.), be portable (so I can drag it back and forth to work easily), and be able to support as some sort of options: virtual memory with a hard disk (10M, 20M, or whatever is cheap), ethernet, and different size physical memory (512K, 1M, 2M). As I see it, the technology exists right now to build such a beast (by "right now" I mean "order it from BYTE magazine"). The hi-res display, keyboard, mouse, r2-232/422 and floppies are supplied by an Apple MacIntosh (approximately $1700-2800). The remaining non-optional stuff would be supplied (initially) by a box similar in size to the Mac containing an 8 slot Multi-Bus card rack, power supply, fan, M68010 processor card, ROM card (interpreter, compiler, other handy stuff), RAM card or cards (512K or more), interface logic to talk to the Mac (total < $5,000). The LISP would be Portable Standard Lisp (PSL) which is cheap, avaiable, and could be loaded into ROMS. The Mac would handle the display and filing functions. It would be portable since the Mac will zip into a bag and so could the additional box. Total cost would be around $8,500 to build from scratch (the Imagine IMPRINT laser printers use this concept, so I know it's workable). Some tense hacking plus a disk controller card and 10-30M Winchester could make a single process, virtual memory system possible for an additional $5,000 (total price ~ $13,500). Enhancements could include a bit-slice processor board with a real instruction set, tape cartridge backup, more disk, and a real operating system with files, multple processes, and ether/arc/apple net. My goal is a VILM which is affordable, flexible, and able to support truly tense lisp hacking in a useful way. Is there any such thing out there? I would like to correspond with anyone having interest in VILMs (ideas, designs, hardware and software implementations). -Todd K. ------------------------------ Date: Fri 14 Dec 84 23:29:42-PST From: Derek Sleeman Subject: Intelligent Tutoring Systems course - Winter Quarter [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] This course was given for the first time last session; this year the course will have more of a workshop flavour. Topic: Some issues in Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) CS 324X & Ed. 495X Instructor: D Sleeman Time/Location: Winter Quarter: Wednesday, 4-6 p.m., Room 334 Cubberley Audience: Graduate Students in Computer Science, Education & Psychology. Prerequisites: Consent of Instructor required Number of units: 2-3 The seminar will highlight research problems which are encountered in implementing automated teaching systems from principally, an AI perspective, and secondly from Cognitive Science and instructional perspectives. In particular we will review the "traditional" CAI systems and the more recent activities in ITSs within these frameworks and point out the current perceived shortcomings which include: - inappropriate feedback due to inadequate students models - inadequate conceptualization of the domain - unprincipled tutoring strategies - user interaction with the system is too restricted The systems which have concentrated on the issue of inferring a student model, namely BUGGY and PIXIE (formerly LMS), will be studied in some depth. Inferring a model of a student's problem solving, even in a restricted domain, is very complex as given N rules, there are potentially N! models to be considered. We shall discuss how these modelling systems have addressed and "solved" the combinatorial explosion problem. We will then consider how some of these techniques could be applied to the more general problem of modelling a user of computer system/package. The class will have access to several mini-versions of ITSs which have very recently been transferred to the IBM PC -- these include a version of BUGGY, PROUST and the instructor's PIXIE system. Indeed the principal task for the class will be to implement a data-base for the PIXIE system. The course will conclude with a discussion of open research issues in the area. Literature: Principal source will be Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Academic Press l982, (eds. Sleeman and Brown). Additional BUGGY and LMS papers and selected papers from Mental Models Erlbaum, l983, (eds. Gentner & Stevens). Queries may be addressed to SLEEMAN@SUMEX, or 497-3257. D. Sleeman, 10 December l984 ------------------------------ Date: 18 Dec 84 1105 PST From: Terry Winograd Subject: Course on Computational Semantics - Ling/CS 276 [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] Computer Science 276 / Linguistics 276 Computational Models for the Semantics of Natural Language Winter 1985 Terry Winograd MWF 10-11, Terman 156 (televized) In this course we will develop the theoretical basis for the implementation of computer systems dealing with the meaning of natural language. We will cover a variety of semantic and pragmatic areas, developing three aspects of each: 1) The formal theories relevant to the area, drawn from work in linguistics and the philosophy of language 2) Computational issues that arise, and the computational mechanisms that have been developed to augment or supplant the standard formal framework 3) Limitations of the formalization and problems in extending it to cover the full range of related phenomena. Areas covered will include lexical meaning, compositionality, quantification and reference, temporality, speech acts, and schematic structures. I will describe a number of existing AI systems in light of these theoretical foundations, but will not attempt to provide a comprehensive coverage of the currently available systems or to deal in depth with details of implementation. The course is intended to serve as a basis for understanding what is being done and what can be done, not as a practical "how-to-do-it" course. There will be three lectures a week, and some homework assignments. There will be a mid-term and a final exam. No computer programming exercises or project will be required. There is no regular textbook. Course notes will be duplicated and made available, based partly on a textbook I am writing. The course will assume a background (either prior, or through additional study during the course) in two areas: formal logic and basic techniques of artificial intelligence. Two books are recommended: Logic in Linguistics, by Allwood, Andersson and Dahl,is recommended to anyone not already well versed in the logical formalisms used in semantics, including basic set theory, propositional and predicate logic, deduction rules, and rudiments of modal and intensional logic. Principles of Artificial Intelligence, by Nils Nillson, is recommended as an introduction to basic AI techniques for planning, deduction, and representation. We will not cover most of this material in class, but will provide tutorial opportunities for those students who need to fill in the background as we go. There are no other prerequisities in either computation or linguistics, except for a general familiarity with concepts of programming (as gained from any programming course or experience). ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: CSVPI 1-JAN-1985 02:59 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a007398; 31 Dec 84 15:48 EST Date: Mon 31 Dec 1984 11:42-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #183 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Tue, 1 Jan 85 02:57 EST AIList Digest Monday, 31 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 183 Today's Topics: Projects - Cognitive Science Dictionary, AI Tools - Cheap Lisp Machines & Xerox, News - Recent Articles & Thinking Machines Corporation & Space Shuttle, Courses - Massively Parallel Models of Intelligence (CMU) & Reasoning about the Physical World (UIUC) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 30 Dec 84 21:53:17 est From: 20568%vax1@cc.delaware (FRAWLEY) Subject: Cognitive Science Dictionary I recently spoke with a publisher about the possibility of compiling a Dictionary of Cognitive Science. I'm sending out this preliminary inquiry to you all to see what you think of the idea. I'd appreciate responses to any or all of the following: 1. Is the idea of such a dictionary good, bad, ridiculous...? 2. Is such a dictionary a feasible project? 3. If the project is feasible, what areas of Cognitive Science ought to be covered? 4. What do you think of the marketability of such a dictionary? 5. If the project is feasible, what form should the dictionary take (i.e., standard dictionary form, encyclopedic form, etc.)? You can send your responses via the AIList or to me directly. Thanks, Bill Frawley Linguistics U. of Delaware 20568.ccvax1@udel ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Dec 84 17:07:33 pst From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!darrelj@Berkeley (Darrel VanBuer) Subject: A Very Cheap Lisp Machine To be slightly partisan toward the machines I use, Xerox Dandelions can be had for under $19,000 in some configurations. For not much over the high end of the proposal in V2 #182, you GET the high end machine (except addition of Ethernet and a display with 6 times the pixels of the Macintosh). About a third of the cost of a Dandelion is for the Interlisp software (inferred from the unbundled Star price list). This is a reasonable cost given the complexity of a full-blown display-oriented Lisp environment and the (relatively) small market for Lisp machines. Darrel J. Van Buer, PhD System Development Corp. 2500 Colorado Ave Santa Monica, CA 90406 (213)820-4111 x5449 ...{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,orstcs,sdcsvax,ucla-cs,akgua} !sdcrdcf!darrelj VANBUER@USC-ECL.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 26 Dec 1984 1757 PST From: Larry Carroll Reply-to: LARRY@JPL-VLSI.ARPA Subject: Xerox AI Paul Erler's message reminds me: the latest Computerworld has a full-page ad with the banner XEROX ANNOUNCES A 15-YEAR HEADSTART IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. It seems they're now selling and supporting what they call the Xerox AI System. It includes a combination of 1108 or 1132 workstations, Interlisp D and LOOPS, and training as well as support. Added info can be gotten from attn: AI Marketing, MS 1245 Xerox Special Information Systems Artificial Intelligence Business Unit 250 N. Halstead St., PO Box 7018 Pasadena, CA 91109 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Dec 84 06:24:05 cst From: Laurence Leff Subject: Recent AI Articles New Scientist November 8, 1984 Volume 104 No. 1429 pp 10 Japan unveils its fifth generation New Scientist November 15, 1984 Volume 104 No. 1430 AI is Stark Naked from the Ankles Up. [An entertaining article claiming that the emperor's new clothes (AI) consist only of sneakers (20-year-old expert systems technology). -- KIL] Distributing Computing APIC studies in Data Processing Volume 20 Edited by F. B. Chambers D. A. Dune G. P. Jones Academic Press $22.50 The following titles in this compendium might be of interest: Using Algebra for Concurrency Reasoning about Concurrent Systems Functional Programming Logic Programming and Prolog ------------------------------ Date: Mon 31 Dec 84 11:40:57-PST From: Ken Laws Subject: Thinking Machines Corporation From the January, 1985, issue of Omni, p. 33, by Edward Rosenfeld: [...] The latest fusion of acadame and venture capital is Thinking Machines Corporation (TMC), a Cambridge, Mass., company that boasts Marvin Minsky, cofounder of MIT's AI Laboratory and one of the pioneers of AI, as one of its founders. A group of investors headed by CBS founder William Paley has reportedly put up a $10 million stake to get TMC off the ground. AI insiders refer to the company as the Marv and Marv Show because, in addition to Marvin Minsky, TMC has also acquired the services of Marvin Denicoff, who formerly guided the AI programs at the Office of Naval Research. The company's first product, currently in prototype development, will be the connection machine, a parallel-processing supercomputer designed by W. Daniel Hillis, of MIT. [...] -- Ken Laws ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Dec 84 14:04:56 est From: nikhil@mit-fla (Rishiyur S. Nikhil) Subject: AI and the Shuttle Here are some items of interest from Aviation Week and Space Technology: ++++ AWST Sep 17, 1984, page 79 Johnson Space Center (Houston) officials expect to use AI techniques in future Shuttle missions, beginning late 1984 or in 1985. The first use will be Navex, a "navigational expert system". Currently, the navigation console position is manned in 4 shifts, with 3 controllers per shift. Each person needs 2 years of training to make high-speed decisions about shuttle velocity and trajectory. JSC officials expect to man it with one controller per shift in conjunction with Navex. Navex is built on ART (Automatic Reasoning Tool), which is written in Lisp. ART is a product of Inference Corp. of Los Angeles. Navex was developed by Inference Corp. and LinCom Corp. of Houston. ++++ AWST Dec10, 1984, page 24 NASA will test Navex along with its human counterparts in Jan 1985. A Symbolics computer will run in a lab near Mission Control at Johnson Space Center, Houston, and will be wired to the navigator console position. They expect it to make decisions about Shuttle velocity and trajectory six times faster than humans. By March, an AI program will perform Shuttle electrical system checks during pre-launch ground preparations. The actual program is finished, but documentation to explain it will take 3 months. (!!) By late summer 1985, Johnson Space Center wil complete an expert system that captures the expertise of a person whose job would be to talk the shuttle down during re-entry if it were to emerge from a radio blackout with malfunctioning navigation instruments. It will take 2 months to build, and will run in Mission Control as an advisor to flight controllers. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Dec 1984 1152-EST From: Geoff Hinton Subject: Course - Massively Parallel Models of Intelligence [Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] Advanced Course on: MASSIVELY PARALLEL MODELS OF NATURAL INTELLIGENCE Geoffrey Hinton & Scott Fahlman This is a 7 week advanced course. It meets from 11.30 - 12.50 on Wednesdays and Fridays in 5409, starting on Wednesday Jan 16. A reading list and a brief description of each lecture will be available from Geoff Hinton on Jan 15th. The course covers models of @b(search, representation,) and @b(learning) in networks of simple processing elements that are richly interconnected. The emphasis will be on the computational properties of these networks, but we will also cover the psychological and neurophysiological evidence for and against various models. SEARCH The main search technique used in these networks is iterative relaxation. Five different models of relaxation will be presented and their performance will be compared on a variety of tasks including stereo-fusion, surface-interpolation, shape-recognition, and figure-ground segmentation. Other search methods will also be covered. REPRESENTATION To make efficient use of the representational capacity of massively parallel networks, it is often necessary to use novel kinds of representation in which individual processing elements do not have a simple relationship to the concepts being represented. We will cover methods of representing continuous variables, high-dimensional feature spaces, spatial transformations, simple associations, schemas, trees, production systems, and Clyde. We will discuss the interaction between representational efficiency and ease of search for each kind of representation. LEARNING We will cover the history of attempts to make networks that learn by modifying connection strengths, and show why these attempts generally failed or worked only for very circumscribed domains. The difficult problem in learning is to construct @i(new) representations. We will compare three different models that create representations by modifying connection strengths. We will also compare these connectionist models with more conventional AI learning methods. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Dec 84 20:57:01 cst From: Kenneth Forbus Subject: Course - Reasoning about the Physical World (UIUC) Course Announcement - U. of Illinois at Urbana CS 497, Spring 1985 Title: Reasoning about the Physical World Instructor: Ken Forbus This graduate seminar will examine principles and methods developed in Artificial Intelligence for reasoning about problems involving space, time, processes, and action. Topics include: solving word problems; qualitative physics; planning actions, experiments, assemblies, and routes; analysis, design, troubleshooting, and control of engineered systems. A solid AI background will be assumed. Outline: 1. Solving Textbook Physics Problems Survey of programs: Charniak's CARPS, Novak, Larkin, Bundy, de Kleer. Transformation from natural language to equations Symbolic algebra 2. Qualitative Physics Qualitative State representation: ontology, making predictions, correlating qualitative results with quantitative results, using qualitative reasoning to guide search for quantitative solutions. Qualitative Process theory: processes as mechanisms of change, influences as representation of equations, basic deductions sanctioned by QP theory, prediction, measurement interpretation. Qualitative System Dynamics: breakdown of processes when system connectivity becomes high, device-centered model for physics. Confluences as representation of equations, constraint-satisfaction and propagation techniques for solving confluences. 3. Planning "Classical" AI planning: GPS, STRIPS, NOAH, MOLGEN. Limitations due to inadequate models of time, space, and action. Modelling time: Histories and Chronicles. Allen's interval-based formulation. Vere's DEVISER. Theories of action. Modelling space: symbolic, metric, and analog representations of space. The "visual routines" model of human spatial competence. Robot planning (routes): Configuration space approach and related computational problems. Quantizing free space into "freeways". Robot planning (assembly): Symbolic analysis of errors. Automatic insertion of inspection steps into assembly plans. 4. Engineering Problem Solving Analysis: Propagation of constraints, EL. Qualitative analysis for functional recognition. Design: SYN, the role of causality in circuit design, circuit grammars. Troubleshooting: Digital electronics: Davis' group and the DART project. Continuous systems: SOPHIE. Control: Temporal logic for synthesizing control strategies. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** From: CSVPI 5-JAN-1985 11:18 To: ROACH,FOX Subj: From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Received: from sri-ai.arpa by csnet-relay.arpa id a027416; 5 Jan 85 2:16 EST Date: Fri 4 Jan 1985 20:53-PST Reply-to: AIList@SRI-AI US-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList Digest V2 #184 To: AIList@SRI-AI Received: from rand-relay by vpi; Sat, 5 Jan 85 11:15 EST AIList Digest Saturday, 5 Jan 1985 Volume 2 : Issue 184 Today's Topics: Symbolic Algebra - Package Request, Expert Systems - Smalltalk Application, AI Tools - Inexpensive Lisp Machines, Mathematics - Fermat's Last Theorem, Cognitive Science - Dictionary Project, Anecdote - SAIL TV Story, Opinion - 5th Generation Research, News - Reading Machines, Conferences - Upcoming Submission Deadlines, Seminars - Representation and Presentation (CSLI) & Rewrite Rules for Functional Programming (IBM-SJ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Jan 85 08:34 EST From: D E Stevenson Subject: Symbolic Algebra Package Request I would like to obtain a symbolic algebra package which would run on a VAX/Franz Lisp configuration. Preferably, I like one in the public domain. D. E. Stevenson, Department of Computer Science Clemson University Clemson, SC 29631 (803) 656-3444 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jan 85 11:43:21 PST From: Jan Steinman Reply-to: Jan Steinman Subject: Smalltalk Expert Systems Mike.Rychener@CMU-RI-ISL2: Does anyone know of any successful AI applications coded in SmallTalk? This was stimulated by the new Tektronix AI machine, whose blurb touts its SmallTalk as useful for developing expert systems. Take a look at the Troubleshooter for the Tektronix 4404. Although I am not on the "inside" on this one, It is a rule based system written in Smalltalk. One of the program's principles (Jim Alexander) is a Cognitive Scientist and not, strictly speaking, a propgrammer, which attests to the ease with which such things can be done in Smalltalk. The Troubleshooter has two graphic and several text windows. The graphic windows present a schematic and a parts layout, each having little probes that move from point to point. A text window asks questions, such as "Is the voltage at N19 high?"; the answers of such questions cause the probe(s) to move to the next test point. Other text windows can be opened on a parts database, troubleshooting advice, and the actual rules program, among others. (Remember, the full power of Smalltalk is always available, which is good and bad!) A window can be opened on a scope screen, which shows expected waveforms at various points. I have seen it; it works; it's fun! I fixed stereos, transceivers, and color TVs before getting into computers and know that half the battle in troubleshooting is often using the service literature! This application is sort of a smart, graphics-based, hypertext service manual and would really be useful. It is not simply an interesting bit of AI research! I AM NOT A PART OF THIS PROJECT. Although I don't want to seem anti-social, please contact your nearest Tek field office for a demo and more information; do not contact me! :::::: Jan Steinman Box 1000, MS 61-161 (w)503/685-2843 :::::: :::::: tektronix!tekecs!jans Wilsonville, OR 97070 (h)503/657-7703 :::::: ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jan 1985 09:58:48-EST From: kushnier@NADC Subject: VILM Todd, We at NAVAIRDEVCEN are also interested in a Low cost portable LISP machine. The MAC came up as a possible candidate. Could you please tell me more about Portable Standard LISP (PSL) ? We are currently considering implementing an EXPERT SYSTEM written in FORTH which we would translate into MACFORTH. Unless an external high speed, high capacity memory device can be utilized, the prospect of using LISP does not look promising. Keep us informed on your progress. Ron Kushnier kushnier@nadc.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Thursday, 3-Jan-85 12:20:36-GMT From: JOLY QMA (on ERCC DEC-10) Subject: Re: Fermat's Last Theorem. Does the reference to the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem (Vol 2 # 181) have anything to do with the incorrect proof of Arnold Arnold which was reported in the Guardian newspaper in October/November 1984 ? Gordon Joly gcj@edxa ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jan 85 15:12:10 est From: hoffman%vax1@cc.delaware (HOFFMAN) Subject: Re: Cognitive Science Dictionary I think it would be a good idea and might have a good market. I would hate to be the one doing the compiling, though. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jan 85 13:01:25 est From: chester%vax1@cc.delaware (CHESTER) Subject: Re: Cognitive Science Dictionary A dictionary (with short definitions of terms) would have limited sales, since it would only be useful to people who are already in the field or who already have strong motivation to get in the field and are required to buy it for a course. An encyclopedia would be better, but I favor a format like that of The Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, (Barr and Feigenbaum) or the Handbook of Human Intelligence (Sternberg). Such a work would appeal to people who have a moderate interest in the field and might give them suitable orientation and motivation to join us. ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 21 Dec 1984 18:12-PST From: imagen!les@su-shasta.arpa Subject: TV and the 5th generation [Forwarded from the Human-Nets Digest by Laws@SRI-AI.] In response to your 20 Dec. comments on "Personal Assistants", I can confirm that the TV story is apocryphal. I bought the Heathkit television set for the Stanford AI Lab and it was completely assembled within a few days after arrival, by gnomes not robots. Aside from its use for monitoring "Mary Hartman! Mary Hartman!" it served as a display for computer-synthesized color images. A creative student (Hans Morovec) shortly built a remote control ray gun that worked rather well. As I recall, that was a few years before remote control became available on commercial TV sets. As for the digs at the AI community by you and others, please do not paint everyone with the same brush. In any research field, the lunatic fringe is much more likely to catch headlines and certain government grants than those who speak rationally. The Great Machine Translation fiasco of the '60s was brought about mainly by the CIA's slavering desire to leap ahead in an area where no one knew how to walk yet. An even greater fiasco was the series of "Command and Control" systems assembled by the Air Force and others in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. They wanted computers to run the military establishment even though they hadn't mastered chess yet. The reason that these largely useless projects kept going was that the people involved were having a good time (and making good money) and the Congress never seemed to understand what was going on. As for AI and 5th generation computers, I know of very few people in the AI community who believe in any of that nonsense. Nevertheless, some will use it to pry larger grants out of the government or to sell high-priced seminars to the gullible public. What keeps happening, it seems, is that people take a few partially- understood facts and principles then extrapolate a few light years away and declare that it must be possible to do this new thing. As long as such activities are rewarded, they will continue to proliferate. Why settle for a trip to the beach when you can head toward Andromeda? Les Earnest ------------------------------ Date: 02 Jan 85 2300 PST From: Richard Vistnes Subject: Reading machines & news I seem to remember someone a while ago asking about the availability of machines that could `read' a page of text with a camera and produce computer-readable text. In the latest issue of Fortune magazine (Jan 7 '85, p.74) there's an article about speech recognition, and it mentions that Kurzweil (formerly of MIT, I believe) let Xerox produce his reading machine, and that this machine can read text in several different fonts. Maybe someone at Xerox can supply more information. - Richard Vistnes ------------------------------ Date: 02 Jan 85 1107 PST From: Yoni Malachi Subject: Upcoming conference submission deadlines [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] (details in file CONFER.TXT[2,2] at SAIL.) 7-Jan-85: IJCAI-85 10-Jan-85: VLSI-85 12-Jan-85: Theoretical Approaches to Natural Language Understanding 14-Jan-85: Logics of Programs 1985 15-Jan-85: Symposium on Complexity of Approximately Solved Problems 15-Jan-85: Workshop on Environments for Programming-in-the-Large 15-Jan-85: 1985 CHAPEL HILL CONFERENCE ON VLSI 18-Jan-85: Computational Linguistics 31-Jan-85: FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES AND COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE 31-Jan-85: Conference - Intelligent Systems and Machines 4-Feb-85: CONFERENCE ON SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE -- 1985 4-Feb-85: Sigmetrics '85 11-Mar-85: THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES IN MACHINE TRANSLATION OF NATURAL LANGUAGES 1-Apr-85: Logic, language and computation meeting 29-Apr-85: FOUNDATIONS OF COMPUTER SCIENCE (FOCS) 1-May-85: Expert Systems in Government Conference You can get the file to your computer using FTP. ------------------------------ Date: Wed 2 Jan 85 17:16:47-PST From: Emma Pease Subject: Seminar - Representation and Presentation (CSLI) [Excerpted from the CSLI Newsletter by Laws@SRI-AI.] CSLI SEMINAR ``Representation and Presentation'' Benny Shanon, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Wednesday, January 9 at 4:00 pm in the Ventura conference room A series of arguments, drawn on the basis of various aspects of psychological phenomenology are marshalled against the representational- computational view of mind. The argument from context marks the unconstrained variation of meaning with context, hence the impossibility of a full, comprehensive semantic representation; the argument from medium points out that medium is an ineliminable contributor to meaning and that a variety of psychological patterns do not allow for a distinction between medium and message, hence they cannot be accounted for by means of abstract, symbolic representations; the argument from development notes that the representational view not only cannot account for the problem of the origin in cognition, but that it leads to unnatural and even paradoxical patterns whereby what is theoretically simple is phenomenologically complex and/or developmentally late and what is theoretically complex is phenomenologically simple and/or developmentally early. On the basis of these arguments it is suggested that cognition be viewed as a dialectic process between two types of patterns: representational and presentational. ------------------------------ Date: 02 Jan 85 2347 PST From: Yoni Malachi Subject: Seminar - Rewrite Rules for Functional Programming (IBM-SJ) [Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.] 2:00pm Monday, Jan. 7 Room 1C-012 (in Building 28 at IBM) Ed Wimmers IBM Research San Jose What does it mean for rewrite rules to be "correct"? We consider an operational definition for FP via rewrite rules. What would it mean for such a definition to be correct? We certainly want the rewrite rules to capture correctly our intuitions regarding the meaning of the primitive functions. We also want there to be enough rewrite rules to compute the correct meaning of all expressions, but not too many, thus making equivalent two expressions that should be different. And what does it mean for there to be "enough" rules? We develop a new formal criterion for deciding whether there are enough rewrite rules and show that our rewrite rules meet that criterion. Our proof technique is novel in the way we use the semantic domain to guide an assignment of types to the untyped language FP; this allows us to adopt powerful techniques from the typed lambda-calculus theory. Host: John Backus ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ********************