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AIList Digest Volume 1 Issue 080
AIList Digest Thursday, 20 Oct 1983 Volume 1 : Issue 80
Today's Topics:
Administrivia - Complaints & Seminar Abstracts,
Implementations - Parallel Production System,
Natural Language - Phrasal Analysis & Macaroni,
Psychology - Awareness,
Programming Languages - Elegance and Purity,
Conferences - Reviewers needed for 1984 NCC,
Fellowships - Texas
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue 18 Oct 83 20:33:15-PDT
From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Reply-to: AIList-Request@SRI-AI
Subject: Complaints
I have received copies of two complaints sent to the author
of a course announcement that I published. The complaints
alleged that the announcement should not have been put out on
the net. I have three comments:
First, such complaints should come to me, not to the original
authors. The author is responsible for the content, but it is
my decision whether or not to distribute the material. In this
case, I felt that the abstract of a new and unique AI course
was of interest to the academic half of the AIList readership.
Second, there is a possibility that the complainants received
the article in undigested form, and did not know that it was
part of an AIList digest. If anyone is currently distributing
AIList in this manner, I want to know about it. Undigested
material is being posted to net.ai and to some bboards, but it
should not be showing up in personal mailboxes.
Third, this course announcement was never formally submitted
to AIList. I picked the item up from a limited distribution,
and failed to add a "reprinted from" or disclaimer line to
note that fact. I apologize to Dr. Moore for not getting in
touch with him before sending the item out.
-- Ken Laws
------------------------------
Date: Tue 18 Oct 83 09:01:29-PDT
From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Reply-to: AIList-Request@SRI-AI
Subject: Seminar Abstracts
It has been suggested to me that seminar abstracts would be more
useful if they contained the home address (or net address, phone
number, etc.) of the speaker. I have little control over the
content of these messages, but I encourage those who compose them
to include such information. Your notices will then be of greater
use to the scientific community beyond just those who can attend
the seminars.
-- Ken Laws
------------------------------
Date: Mon 17 Oct 83 15:44:52-EDT
From: Mark D. Lerner <LERNER@COLUMBIA-20.ARPA>
Subject: Parallel production systems.
The parallel production system interpreter is running
on the 15 node DADO prototype. We can presently run up
to 32 productions, with 12 clauses in each production.
The prototype has been operational since April 1983.
------------------------------
Date: 18 Oct 1983 0711-PDT
From: MEYERS.UCI-20A@Rand-Relay
Subject: phrasal analysis
Recently someone asked why PHRAN was not based on a grammar.
It just so happens ....
I have written a parser which uses many of the ideas of PHRAN
but which organizes the phrasal patterns into several interlocking
grammars, some 'semantic' and some syntactic.
The program is called VOX (Vocabulary Extension System) and attempts
a 'complete' analysis of English text.
I am submitting a paper about the concepts underlying the system
to COLING, the conference on Computational Linguistics.
Whether or not it is accepted, I will make a UCI Technical Report
out of it.
To obtain a copy of the paper, write:
Amnon Meyers
AI Project
Dept. of Computer Science
University of California,
Irvine, CA 92717
------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 19 October 1983 10:48:46 EDT
From: Robert.Frederking@CMU-CS-CAD
Subject: Grammars; Greek; invective
One comment and two meta-comments:
Re: the validity of grammars: almost no one claims that grammatical
phenomena don't exist (even Schank doesn't go that far). What the
argument generally is about is whether one should, as the first step
in understanding an input, build a grammatical tree, without any (or
much) information from either semantics or the current
conversational context. One side wants to do grammar first, by
itself, and then the other stuff, whereas the other side wants to try
to use all available knowledge right from the start. Of course, there
are folks taking extreme positions on both sides, and people
sometimes get a bit carried away in the heat of an argument.
Re: Greek: As a general rule, it would be helpful if people who send in
messages containing non-English phrases included translations. I
cannot judge the validity of the Macaroni argument, since I don't
completely understand either example. One might argue that I should
learn Greek, but I think expecting me to know Maori grammatical
classes is stretching things a bit.
Re: invective: Even if the reference to Yahweh was meant as a childhood
opinion which has mellowed with age, I object to statements of the
form "this same wonderful god... tortured and burned..." etc.
Perhaps it was a typo. As we all know, people have tortured and
burnt other people for all sorts of reasons (including what sort of
political/economic systems small Asian countries should have), and I
found the statement offensive.
------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 19 October 1983 13:23:59 EDT
From: Robert.Frederking@CMU-CS-CAD
Subject: Awareness
As Paul Torek correctly points out, this is a metaphysical question.
The only differences I have with his note are over the use of some difficult
terms, and the fact that he clearly prefers the "physicalist" notion. Let
me start by saying that one shouldn't try to prove one side or the other,
since proofs clearly cannot work: awareness isn't subject to proof. The
evidence consists entirely of internal experiences, without any external
evidence. (Let me warn everyone that I have not been formally trained in
philosophy, so some of my terms may be non-standard.) The fact that this
issue isn't subject to proof does not make it trivial, or prevent it from
being a serious question. One's position on this issue determines, I think,
to a large extent one's view on many other issues, such as whether robots
will eventually have the same legal stature as humans, and whether human life
should have a special value, beyond its information handling abilities, for
instance for euthanasia and abortion questions. (I certainly don't want to
argue about abortion; personally, I think it should be legal, but not treated
as a trivial issue.)
At this point, my version of several definitions is in order. This
is because several terms have been confused, due probably to the
metaphysical nature of the problem. What I call "awareness" is *not*
"self-reference": the ability of some information processing systems (including
people) to discuss and otherwise deal with representations of themselves.
It is also *not* what has been called here "consciousness": the property of
being able to process information in a sophisticated fashion (note that
chemical and physical reactions process information as well). "Awareness"
is the internal experience which Michael Condict was talking about, and
which a large number of people believe is a real thing. I have been
told that this definition is "epiphenominal", in that awareness is not the
information processing itself, but is outside the phenomena observed.
Also, I believe that I understand both points of view; I can argue
either side of the issue. However, for me to argue that the experience of
"awareness" consists solely of a combination of information processing
capabilities misses the "dualist" point entirely, and would require me to
deny that I "feel" the experience I do. Many people in science deny that
this experience has any reality separate from the external evidence of
information processing capabilities. I suspect that one motivation for this
is that, as Paul Torek seems to be saying, this greatly simplifies one's
metaphysics.
Without trying to prove the "dualist" point of view, let me give an
example of why this view seems, to me, more plausible than the
"physicalist" view. It is a variation of something Joseph Weizenbaum
suggested. People are clearly aware, at least they claim to be. Rocks are
clearly not aware (in the standard Western view). The problem with saying
that computers will ever be aware in the same way that people are is that
they are merely re-arranged rocks. A rock sitting in the sun is warm, but
is not aware of its warmth, even though that information is being
communicated to, for instance, the rock it is sitting on. A robot next to
the rock is also warm, and, due to a skillful re-arrangement of materials,
not only carries that information in its kinetic energy, but even has a
temperature "sensor", and a data structure representing its body
temperature. But it is no more aware (in the experiential sense) of what is
going on than the rock is, since we, by merely using a different level of
abstraction in thinking about it, can see that the data structure is just a
set of states in some semiconductors inside it. The human being sitting
next to the robot not only senses the temperature and records it somehow (in
the same sense as the robot does), but experiences it internally, and enjoys
it (I would anyway). This experiencing is totally undetectable to physical
investigation, even when we (eventually) are able to analyze the data
structures in the brain.
An interesting side-note to this is that in some cultures, rocks, trees,
etc., are believed to experience their existance. This is, to me, an
entirely acceptable alternate theory, in which the rock and robot would both
feel the warmth (and other physical properties) they possess.
As a final point, when I consider what I am aware of at any given moment, it
seems to include a visual display, an auditory sensation, and various bits
of data from parts of my body (taste, smell, touch, pain, etc.). There are
many things inside my brain that I am *not* aware of, including the
preprocessing of my vision, and any stored memories not recalled at the
moment. There is a sharp boundary between those things I am aware of and
those things I am not. Why should this be? It isn't just that the high
level processes, whatever they are, have access to only some structures.
They *feel* different from other structures in the brain, whose information
I also have access to, but which I have no feeling of awareness in. It
would appear that there is some set of processing elements to which my
awareness has access. This is the old mind-body problem that has plagued
philosophers for centuries.
To deny this qualitative difference would be, for me, silly, as silly as
denying that the physical world really exists. In any event, whatever stand
you take on this issue is based on personal preferences in metaphysics, and
not on physical proof.
------------------------------
Date: 14 Oct 83 1237 PDT
From: Dick Gabriel <RPG@SU-AI>
Subject: Elegance and Logical Purity
[Reprinted from the Prolog Digest.]
In the Lisp world, as you know, there are 2 Lisps that serve as
examples for this discussion: T and Common Lisp. T is based on
Scheme and, as such, it is relatively close to a `pure' Lisp or
even a lambda-calculus-style Lisp. Common Lisp is a large,
`user-convenient' Lisp. What are the relative successes of these
two Lisps ? T appeals to the few, me included, while Common Lisp
appeals to the many. The larger, user-convenient Lisps provide
programmers with tools that help solve problems, but they don't
dictate the style of the solutions.
Think of it this way: When you go to an auto mechanic and you
see he has a large tool chest with many tools, are you more or
less confident in him than if you see he has a small tool box
with maybe 5 tools ? Either way our confidence should be based
on the skill of the mechanic, but we expect a skilfull mechanic
with the right tools to be more efficient and possibly more
accurate than the mechanic who has few tools, or who merely has
tools and raw materials for making further tools.
One could take RPLACA as an analog to a user-convenience in this
situation. We do not need RPLACA: it messes up the semantics, and
we can get around it with other, elegant and pure devices. However,
RPLACA serves user convenience by providing an efficient means of
accomplishing an end. In supplying RPLACA, I, the implementer,
have thought through what the user is trying to do. No user would
appreciate it if I suggested that I knew better than he what he is
doing and to propose he replace all list structure that he might
wish to use with side-effect with closures and to then hope for
a smarter compiler someday.
I think it shows more contempt of users' abilities to dictate a
solution to him in the name of `elegance and logical purity' than
for me to think through what he wants for him.
I am also hesitant to foist on people systems or languages that
are so elegant and pure that I have trouble explaining it to users
because I am subject to being ``muddled about them myself.''
Maybe it is stupid to continue down the Lisp path, but Lisp is the
second oldest lanuage (to FORTRAN), and people clamor to use it.
Recall what Joel Moses said when comparing APL with Lisp.
APL is perfect; it is like a diamond. But like a diamond
you cannot add anything to it to make it more perfect, nor
can you add anything to it and have it remain a diamond.
Lisp, on the other hand, is like a ball of mud. You can add
more mud to it, and it is still a ball of mud.
I think user convenience is like mud.
-rpg-
------------------------------
Date: Tuesday, 18 October 1983 09:32:25 EDT
From: Joseph.Ginder at CMU-CS-SPICE
Subject: Common Lisp Motivation
[Reprinted from the Prolog Digest.]
Being part of the Common Lisp effort, I would like to express an
opinion about the reasons for the inclusion of so many "impurities" in
Common Lisp that differs from that expressed by Fernando Pereira in
the last Prolog Digest. I believe the reason for including much of
what is now Common Lisp in the Common Lisp specification was an effort
to provide common solutions to common problems; this is as opposed to
making concessions to language limitations or people's (in)ability to
write smart compilers. In particular, the reference to optimizing
"inefficient copying into efficient replacement" does not seem a
legitimate compiler optimization (in the general sense) -- this
clearly changes program semantics. (In the absence of side effects,
this would not be a problem, but note that some side effect is
required to do IO.) For a good statement of the goals of the Common
Lisp effort, see Guy Steele's paper in the 1982 Lisp and Functional
Programming Conference Proceedings.
Let me hasten to add that I agree with Pereira's concern that
expediency not be promoted to principle. It is for this very reason
that language features such as flavors and the loop construct were not
included in the Common Lisp specification -- we determined not to
standardize until concensus could be reached that a feature was both
widely accepted and believed to be a fairly good solution to a common
problem. The goal is not to stifle experimentation, but to promote
good solutions that have been found through previous experience. In
no sense do I believe anyone regards the current Common Lisp language
as the Final Word on Lisp.
Also, I have never interpreted Moses' diamond vs. mud analogy to have
anything to do with authoritarianism, only aesthetics. Do others ?
-- Joe Ginder
------------------------------
Date: 17 Oct 1983 07:38:44-PST
From: jmiller.ct@Rand-Relay
Subject: Reviewers needed for 1984 NCC
The Program Committee for the 1984 National Computer Conference, which will be
held in Las Vegas next July 9-12, is about to begin reviewing submitted
papers, and we are in need of qualified people who would be willing to serve
as reviewers. The papers would be sent to you in the next couple of weeks;
the reviews would have to be returned by the end of December.
Since NCC is sponsored by non-profit computer societies and is run largely by
volunteers, it is not possible to compensate reviewers for the time and
effort they contribute. However, to provide some acknowledgement of your
efforts, your name will appear in the conference proceedings and, if you
wish to attend NCC, we can provide you with advanced registration forms in
hotels close to the convention center. We are also trying to arrange
simplified conference registration for reviewers.
As the chair of the artificial intelligence track, I am primarily concerned
with finding people who would be willing to review papers on AI and/or
human-computer interaction. However, I will forward names of volunteers in
other areas to the appropriate chairs. If you would like to volunteer,
please send me your:
- name,
- mailing address,
- telephone number,
- arpanet or csnet address (if any), and
- subjects that you are qualified to review (it would be ideal if
you could use the ACM categorization scheme)
Either arpanet/csnet mail or US mail to my address below would be fine.
Thanks for your help.
James Miller
Computer * Thought Corporation
1721 West Plano Parkway
Plano, Texas 75075
JMILLER.CT @ RAND-RELAY
------------------------------
Date: Tue 11 Oct 83 10:44:08-CDT
From: Gordon Novak Jr. <CS.NOVAK@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: $1K/mo Fellowships at Texas
The Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin
is initiating a Doctoral Fellows program, with fellowships available in
Spring 1984 and thereafter. Recipients must be admitted to the Ph.D.
program; November 1 is the applications deadline for Spring 1984.
Applicants must have a B.A. or B.S. in Computer Science, or equivalent,
a total GRE (combined verbal and quantitative) of at least 1400, and a
GPA of at least 3.5 . Doctoral Fellows will serve as Teaching
Assistants for two semesters, then will be given a fellowship (with no
TA duties) for one additional year. The stipend will be $1000/month.
Twenty fellowships per year will be available.
The Computer Sciences Department at the University of Texas is ranked in
the top ten departments by the Jones-Lindzey report. Austin is blessed
with an excellent climate and unexcelled cultural and recreational
opportunities.
For details, contact Dr. Jim Bitner (CS.BITNER@UTEXAS-20), phone (512)
471-4353, or write to Computer Science Department, University of Texas
at Austin, Austin, TX 78712.
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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