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AIList Digest Volume 1 Issue 040
AIList Digest Tuesday, 16 Aug 1983 Volume 1 : Issue 40
Today's Topics:
Knowledge Representation & Applicative Languages,
Fifth Generation - Military Potential,
Artificial Intelligence - Bigotry & Turing Test
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Date: Friday, 12 Aug 1983 15:28-PDT
From: narain@rand-unix
Subject: Reply to stan the leprechaun hacker
I am responding to two of the points you raised.
Attribute value pairs are hopeless for any area (including AI areas)
where your "cognitive chunks" are complex structures (like trees). An
example is symbolic algebraic manipulation, where it is natural to
think in terms of general forms of algebaraic expressions. Try writing
a symbolic differentiation program in terms of attribute-value pairs.
Another example is the "logic grammars" for natural language, whose
implementation in Prolog is extremely clear and efficient.
As to whether FP or more generally applicative languages are useful to
AI depends upon the point of view you take of AI. A useful view is to
consider it as "advanced programming" where you wish to develop
intelligent computer programs, and so develop powerful computational
methods for them, even if humans do not use those methods. From this
point of view Backus's comments about the "von Neumann bottleneck"
apply equally to AI programming as they do to conventional
programming. Hence applicative languages may have ideas that could
solve the "software crisis" in AI as well.
This is not just surmise; the Prolog applications to date and underway
are evidence in favor of the power of applicative languages. You may
debate about the "applicativeness" of practical Prolog programming,
but in my opinion the best and (also the most efficient) Prolog
programs are in essence "applicative".
-- Sanjai Narain
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Date: 12 Aug 1983 1208-PDT
From: FC01@USC-ECL
Subject: Knowledge Representation, Fifth Generation
About knowledge representation---
Although many are new to this ballgame, the fundamentals of
the field are well established. Look in the dictionary of information
science a few years back (5-10?) for an article on the representation
of knowledge by Irwin Marin. The (M,R) pair mentioned is indeed a
general structure for representation. In fact, you may recal 10 or 20
years ago there was talk that the most efficient programs on computers
would eventually consist of many many pointers (Rs) that pointed
between datums (Ms) in may different ways - kinda like the brain!!! It
has gone well beyond the (M,R) pair stage and Marin has developed a
structure for representation that allows top down knowledge
engineering to proceed in a systematic fashion. I guess many of us
forsake history in many ways, both social and technical.
As to the 'race' to 5th generation computers, it may indeed be
a means to further the military industrial complex in the area of
computing, but let us also consider the tactical implications of a
highly intelligent (take the term with a grain of salt when speeking
of a computer) tactical computer. Perhaps the complexities of battle
could be simplified for human consumption to the point where a good
general could indeed win an otherwise lost war. Perhaps not. The
scientific sharing of ideas has always been the boon of science and
the bust of government. The U.S. is in an advantageous vantage point
from the boom point of view because we share so much with each other
and others. We are also tops in the bust category because it is so
easy to get our information to other places. Somewhere the scientific
need for communication must be traded off with the possible effects of
the research. This is what I call scientific responsibility. As
scientists we are responsible not only to our research and the
dissemination of our knowledge, but also responsible for the effects
of that knowledge. If we shared the 'secrets' of the atomic bomb with
the world as we developed it, do you think more or fewer people would
have died? I think the Germans (who were also working on the project)
might have been able to complete their version sooner and would have
killed a great number more people. In the case of Japan, we are
talking economic struggle rather than political, but the concept of
war and destruction can be visualized just as well. A small country
using a very rapid economic growth to push ahead of the rest of the
world, now has no place to expand to. Heard it before? What new
technology will be developed using the new generation of computers?
Can we afford to lose our edge in yet another technological area to
the more eager of the world? Is this just another ploy of the M.I.
complex to get money from the people and take food from the hungry?
Tough questions, without the facts hard to answer.
Another controversy ignited or
enflamed by yours truly,
Fred
------------------------------
Date: 12 Aug 1983 15:09-PDT
From: andy at -[VAX]
Subject: Japan's supercomputers as potential defense threat
I'm a little confused about why this Japanese business seems to be
scaring the pants off of the US research community... why
anyone cares if the fifth generation thing is propoganda or not.
You'll find out when they make it work or they don't! ...Worry
about the arms race, not the computer race!
-- SHRAGER%CMU-PSY-A@CMU-CS-PT
One serious reason for concern, at least according to political
conservatives, is that the United States would cease to be in a
position to control the distribution of the world's most advanced
computing technology.
Currently, there are specific export restrictions to prohibit transfer
of advanced technology from the U.S. to its putative enemies (e.g. the
Soviet Union). (For example, I was told not long ago that it is
illegal to fly over France carrying the schematics for a Cyber in your
briefcase.)
The reason for this becomes quite clear when you consider who the
principal consumers of supercomputers are in this country: they are
disproportionally well represented by people pursuing nuclear energy
and weapons R&D, cryptology, and war gaming. If the Japanese have the
fastest computers, then they control distribution of the hottest
computational technology and at least potentially could sell it to
countries that DoD would prefer to remain well behind us
technologically. Worse, they might sell it to others but not to the
United States.
While there are lapses in the effectiveness of this sort of export
control, it seems to work fairly well overall. For example, I
recently read that the East Germans have just successfully fabricated
a Z-80 chip clone; reportedly, although their chip does seem to work,
it is substantially inferior to the state of the art here. If the
best that "blacklisted" countries can do is play catch-up via reverse
engineering, the U.S. Government will have met its practical goal of
denying them up-to-date technology. If, on the other hand, other
countries are able to produce faster and more powerful computers, the
U.S. could no longer control access to the best tools available for
defense R&D.
When I begin to worry is when Japan decides to build a better MX
missle, not a better computer system. Then issues of scientific
morals are involved and it's a whole 'nother ballgame.
Supercomputers play a significant role in intelligence and weapons
resarch in the United States. I would expect those people who
subscribe to the view that the U.S. Government should deny high
technology to its perceived enemies to argue that they ARE "worry[ing]
about the arms race" when they feel threatened by Japan's big
technology push, and that the issue IS at least qualitatively
equivalent to Japan's developing better missiles.
asc
p.s. No flames about science and brotherhood, please. I didn't claim
to agree with the conservatives whose views I'm attempting to
describe. The argument that "Science is a cooperative effort"
has, BTW, also been voiced freequently in response to NSA's
recent attempt to control cryptology research in the U.S.
p.p.s. Perhaps further discussion of the role of Japan's
supercomputer project in defense applications should be directed to,
or at least CC'd to, ARMS-D@MIT-MC.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 83 12:59:34 EDT
From: Brint Cooper (CTAB) <abc@brl-bmd>
Subject: Unprintable
I'm sorry, folks, but all this flaming about 7 December 1941 sounds
too much like old fashioned racism for me.
B. Cooper
------------------------------
Date: 12 Aug 83 16:52:14-PDT (Fri)
From: ihnp4!we13!otuxa!ll1!sb1!sb6!emory!gatech!spaf @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Sex, religion, words, smoking, farting, and the net
Article-I.D.: gatech.364
It just occurred to me today that most of the discussions going on
about use of genderless pronouns, homosexuals, heterosexuals,
personal habits, religion, and other interesting habits, all have one
point in common when we discuss them -- they're *human*
activities/conditions.
Now stop for a moment and consider the Turing test. When you read
these messages from other users on the net, how do you know that they
are from people typing at some site rather than some intelligent
program? I would contend that a good definition of humanity and
intelligence could be formulated by someone looking at the net
traffic. The rabid flamers and fanatics who condemn and insult would
not meet that definition.
We develop new ideas daily in this field. A handicapped person is
freed from his or her limitations if they can communicate with the
rest of us at 300 or 1200 baud. They can stutter, or be mute, they
can be almost completely paralyzed, but their minds and souls are
still alive and free and can communicate with the rest of us.
It doesn't matter if you are male or female, black, red, white,
green, tall, short, old, young, fat, smoking, farting, going 55 mph,
attracted to members of the same sex, attracted to sheep, or any
possible variation of the human condition -- you are a human
intelligence at the other end of my network connection, and I deal
with you in a human manner. Once you show your lack of tolerance or
your inability to at least try to understand, you show yourself to be
less than human.
Discrimination really means the ability to differentiate amongst
alternatives. Prejudice and bigotry mean that you discriminate based
on factors which have no real bearing on the choice at hand. I
believe that the definition of "human intelligence" is that it
implies the ability to discriminate and the inability to be a bigot.
I hope that some of the contributors to the net are simply AI
projects; I would hate to believe that there are people with so much
hate and intolerance as is sometimes expressed.
Comments?
--
The soapbox of Gene Spafford
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech
ARPA: Spaf.GATech @ UDel-Relay
uucp: ...!{sb1,allegra,ut-ngp}!gatech!spaf
...!duke!mcnc!msdc!gatech!spaf
[I disagree strongly with any definition of humanity that excludes
flamers and bigots, but this digest is not the place for such a
discussion. The question of whether intelligence excludes (or
implies) prejudice is more interesting. We should also be seeking a
replacement for the Turing test that could identify nonhuman
intelligence. -- KIL]
------------------------------
Date: 14 Aug 83 1:12:15-PDT (Sun)
From: harpo!seismo!rlgvax!oz @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Re: Sex, religion, words, smoking, farting, and the net
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.994
I agree that it would be a shame if there were AI projects that had
such hate and bigotry. I argue that it WOULD be possible for an AI
project to exhibit the narrowmindedness and stupidity that we
frequently see on the net. An interesting discussion, Gene, it is
something to ponder.
OZ
seismo!rlgvax!oz
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End of AIList Digest
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