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AIList Digest Volume 1 Issue 095
AIList Digest Thursday, 10 Nov 1983 Volume 1 : Issue 95
Today's Topics:
Alert - Hacker's Dictionary,
Conference - Robotic Intelligence and Productivity,
Tutorial - Machine Translation,
Report - AISNE meeting
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 8 Nov 1983 1215:19-EST
From: Lawrence Osterman <OSTERMAN@CMU-CS-C.ARPA>
Subject: Guy Steele's
[Reprinted from the CMU-C bboard.]
New book is now out.
The Hacker's Dictionary, Available in the CMU Bookstore
right now. The cost is 5.95 (6.31 after taxes) and its well
worth getting (It includes (among other things) The COMPLETE
INTERCAL character set (ask anyone in 15-312 last fall),
Trash 80,N, Moby, and many others (El Camino Bignum?))
Larry
[According to another message, the CMU bookstore immediately
sold out. -- KIL]
------------------------------
Date: 7 Nov 1983 1127-PST
From: MEDIONI@USC-ECLC
Subject: Conference announcement
****** CONFERENCE ANNOUCEMENT ******
ROBOTIC INTELLIGENCE AND PRODUCTIVITY CONFERENCE
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY, DETROIT, MICHIGAN
NOVEMBER 18-19, 1983
For more information and advance program, please contact:
Dr Pepe Siy
(313) 577-3841
(313) 577-3920 - Messages
or Dr Singh
(313) 577-3840
------------------------------
Date: Tue 8 Nov 83 10:06:34-CST
From: Jonathan Slocum <LRC.Slocum@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: Tutorial Announcement
[The following is copied from a circular, with the author's encouragement.
Square brackets delimit my personal insertions, for clarification. -- JS]
THE INSTITUT DALLE MOLLE POUR LES ETUDES SEMANTIQUES ET
COGNITIVES DE L'UNIVERSITE DE GENEVE ("ISSCO") is to hold
a Tutorial on
MACHINE TRANSLATION
from Monday 2nd April to Friday 6th, 1984, in Lugano, Switzerland
The attraction of Machine Translation as an application domain for
computers has long been recognized, but pioneers in the field seriously
underestimated the complexity of the problem. As a result, early
systems were severely limited.
The design of more recent systems takes into account the
interdisciplinary nature of the task, recognizing that MT involves the
construction of a complete system for the collection, representation,
and strategic deployment of a specialised kind of linguistic knowledge.
This demands contribution from the fields of both theoretical and
computational linguistics, conputer science, and expert system design.
The aim of this tutorial is to convey the state of the art by allowing
experts in different aspects of MT to present their particular points of
view. Sessions covering the historical development of MT and its
possible future evolution will also be included to provide a tutorial
which should be relevant to all concerned with the relationship between
natural language and computer science.
The Tutorial will take place in the Palazzo dei Congressi or the Villa
Heleneum, both set in parkland on the shore of Lake Lugano, which is
perhaps the most attractive among the lakes of the Swiss/Italian Alps.
Situated to the south of the Alpine massif, Spring is early and warm.
Participants will be accommodated in nearby hotels. Registration will
take place on the Sunday evening preceding the Tutorial.
COSTS: Fees for registration submitted by January 31, 1984, will be 120
Swiss franks for students, 220 Swiss franks for academic participants,
and 320 Swiss franks for others. After this date the fees will increase
by 50 Swiss franks for all participants. The fees cover tuition,
handouts, coffee, etc. Hotel accommodation varies between 30 and 150
Swiss franks per night [booking form available, see below]. It may be
possible to arrange cheaper [private] accommodation for students.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION [incl. booking forms, etc.] (in advance of the
Tutorial) please contact ISSCO, 54 route des Acacias, CH-1227 Geneva; or
telephone [41 for Switzerland] (22 for Geneva) 20-93-33 (University of
Geneva), extension ("interne") 21-16 ("vingt-et-un-seize"). The
University switchboard is closed daily from 12 to 1:30 Swiss time.
[Switzerland is six (6) hours ahead of EST, thus 9 hours ahead of PST.]
------------------------------
Date: Tue 8 Nov 83 10:59:12-CST
From: Jonathan Slocum <LRC.Slocum@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: Tutorial Program
PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME
Each session is scheduled to include a 50-minute lecture followed by a
20-minute discussion period. Most evenings are left free, but rooms
will be made available for informal discussion, poster sessions, etc.
Sun. 1st 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Registration
Mon. 2nd 9:30 Introductory session M. King [ISSCO]
11:20 A non-conformist's view of the G. Sampson [Lancaster]
state of the art
2:30 Pre-history of Machine Translation B. Buchmann [ISSCO]
4:20 SYSTRAN P. Wheeler [Commission
of the European
Communities]
Tue. 3rd 9:30 An overview of post-65 developments E. Ananiadou [ISSCO]
S. Warwick [ISSCO]
11:20 Software for MT I: background J.L. Couchard [ISSCO]
D. Petitpierre [ISSCO]
2:30 SUSY D. MAAS [Saarbruecken]
4:20 TAUM Meteo and TAUM Aviation P. Isabelle [Montreal]
Wed. 4th 9:30 Linguistic representations in A. De Roeck [Essex]
syntax based MT systems
11:00 AI approaches to MT P. Shann [ISSCO]
12:00 New developments in Linguistics E. Wehrli [UCLA]
and possible implications for MT
3:00 Optional excursion
Thu. 5th 9:30 GETA C. Boitet [Grenoble]
11:20 ROSETTA J. Landsbergen [Philips]
2:30 Software for MT II: R. Johnson [Manchester]
some recent developments M. Rosner [ISSCO]
4:20 Creating an environment for A. Melby [Brigham Young]
the translator
Fri. 5th 9:30 METAL J. Slocum [Texas]
11:20 EUROTRA M. King [ISSCO]
2:30 New projects in France C. Boitet [Grenoble]
4:20 MT - the future A. Zampoli [Pisa]
5:30 Closing session
There will be a 1/2 hour coffee break between sessions. The lunch break
is from 12:30 to 2:30.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 83 14:01 EST
From: Visions <kitchen%umass-cs@CSNet-Relay>
Subject: Report on AISNE meeting (long message)
BRIEF REPORT ON
FIFTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE
AI SOCIETY OF NEW ENGLAND
Held at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, 4th-5th November 1983.
Programme Chairman: Drew McDermott (Yale)
Local Arrangements Chairman: Eugene Charniak (Brown)
Friday, 4th November
8:00PM
Long talk by Harry Pople (Pittsburgh), "Where is the expertise in
expert systems?" Comments and insights about the general state of
work in expert systems. INTERNIST: history, structure, and example.
9:30PM
"Intense intellectual colloquy and tippling" [Quoted from programme]
LATE
Faculty and students at Brown very hospitably billeted us visitors
in their homes.
Saturday, 5th November
10:00AM
Panel discussion, Ruven Brooks (ITT), Harry Pople (Pittsburgh), Ramesh
Patil (MIT), Paul Cohen (UMass), "Feasible and infeasible expert-systems
applications". [Unabashedly selective and incoherent notes:] RB: Expert
systems have to be relevant, and appropriate, and feasible. There are
by-products of building expert systems, for example, the encouragement of
the formalization of the problem domain. HP: Historically, considering
DENDRAL and MOLGEN, say, users have ultimately made greater use of the
tools and infrastructure set up by the designers than of the top-level
capabilities of the expert system itself. The necessity of taking into
account the needs of the users. RP: What is an expert system? Is
MACSYMA no more than a 1000-key pocket calculator? Comparison of expert
systems against real experts. Expert systems that actually work --
narrow domains in which hypotheses can easily be verified. What if the
job of identifying the applicability of an expert system is a harder
problem than the one the expert system itself solves? In the domains of
medical diagnosis: enormous space of diagnoses, especially if multiple
disorders are considered. Needed: reasoning about: 3D space, anatomy;
time; multiple disorders, causality; demography; physiology; processes.
HP: A strategic issue in research: small-scale, tractable problems that
don't scale up. Is there an analogue of Blocksworld? PC: Infeasible
(but not too infeasible) problems are fit material for research; feasible
problems for development. The importance of theoretical issues in choosing
an application area for research. An animated, general discussion followed.
11:30AM
Short talks:
Richard Brown (Mitre), Automatic programming. Use of knowledge about
programming and knowledge about the specific application domain.
Ken Wasserman (Columbia), "Representing complex physical objects". For
use in a system that digests patent abstracts. Uses frame-like represent-
ation, giving parts, subparts, and the relationships between them.
Paul Barth (Schlumberger-Doll), Automatic programming for drilling-log
interpretation, based on a taxonomy of knowledge sources, activities, and
corresponding transformation and selection operations.
Malcolm Cook (UMass), Narrative summarization. Goal orientations of the
characters and the interactions between them. "Affect state map".
Extract recognizable patterns of interaction called "plot units". Summary
based on how these plot units are linked together. From this summary
structure a natural-language summary of the original can be generated.
12:30PM
Lunch, during which Brown's teaching lab, equipped with 55 Apollos,
was demonstrated.
2:00PM
Panel discussion, Drew McDermott (Yale), Randy Ellis (UMass), Tomas
Lozano-Perez (MIT), Mallory Selfridge (UConn), "AI and Robotics".
DMcD contemplated the effect that the realization of a walking, talking,
perceiving robot would have on AI. He remarked how current robotics
work does entail a lot of AI, but that there is necessary, robotics-
-specific, ground-work (like matrices, a code-word for "much mathematics").
All the other panelists had a similar view of this inter-relation between
robotics and AI. The other panelists then sketched robotics work being
done at their respective institutions. RE: Integration of vision and
touch, using a reasonable world model, some simple planning, and feedback
during the process. Cartesian robot, gripper, Ken Overton's tactile array
sensor (force images), controllable camera, Salisbury hand. Need for AI
in robotics, especially object representation and search. Learning -- a
big future issue for a robot that actually moves about in the world.
Problems of implementing algorithms in real time. For getting started in
robotics: kinematics, materials science, control theory, AI techniques,
but how much of each depends on what you want to do in robotics. TL-P:
A comparatively lengthy talk on "Automatic synthesis of fine motion
strategies", best exemplified by the problem of putting a peg into a hole.
Given the inherent uncertainty in all postions and motions, the best
strategy (which we probably all do intuitively) is to aim the peg just to
one side of the hole, sliding it across into the hole when it hits,
grazing the far side of the hole as it goes down. A method for generating
such a strategy automatically, using a formalism based on configuration
spaces, generalized dampers, and friction cones. MS: Plans for commanding
a robot in natural language, and for describing things to it, and for
teaching it how to do things by showing it examples (from which the robot
builds an abstract description, usable in other situations). A small, but
adequate robotics facility. Afterwards, an open discussion, during which
was stressed how important it is that the various far-flung branches of AI
be more aware of each other, and not become insular. Regarding robotics
research, all panelists agreed strongly that it was absolutely necessary
to work with real robot hardware; software simulations could not hope to
capture all the pernickety richness of the world, motion, forces, friction,
slippage, uncertainty, materials, bending, spatial location, at least not
in any computationally practical way. No substitute for reality!
3:30PM
More short talks
Jim Hendler (Brown), an overview of things going on at Brown, and in the
works. Natural language (story comprehension). FRAIL (frame-based
knowledge representation). NASL (problem solving). An electronic
repair manual, which generates instructions for repairs as needed from
an internal model, hooked up with a graphics and 3D modelling system.
And in the works: expert systems, probabilistic reasoning, logic programming,
problem solving, parallel computation (in particular marker-passing and
BOLTZMANN-style machines). Brown is looking for a new AI faculty member.
[Not a job ad, just a report of one!]
David Miller (Yale), "Uncertain planning through uncertain territory".
How to get from A to B if your controls and sensors are unreliable.
Find a path to your goal, along the path select checkpoints (landmarks),
adjust the path to go within eye-shot of the checkpoints, then off you go,
running demons to watch out for checkpoints and raise alarms if they don't
appear when expected. This means you're lost. Then you generate hypotheses
about where you are now (using your map), and what might have gone wrong to
get you there (based on a self-model). Verify one (some? all?) of these
hypotheses by looking around. Patch your plan to get back to an appro-
priate checkpoint. Verify the whole process by getting back on the beaten
track. Apparently there's a real Hero robot that cruises about a room
doing this.
Bud Crawley (GTE) described what was going on at GTE Labs in AI. Know-
ledge-based systems. Natural-language front-end for data bases.
Distributed intelligence. Machine learning.
Bill Taylor (Gould Inc.), gave an idea of what applied AI research means
to his company, which (in his division) makes digital controllers for
running machines out on the factory floor. Currently, an expert system
for repairing these controllers in the field. [I'm not sure how far along
in being realized this was, I think very little.] For the future, a big,
smart system that would assist a human operator in managing the hundreds
of such controllers out on the floor of a decent sized factory.
Graeme Hirst (Brown, soon Toronto), "Artificial Digestion". Artificial
Intelligence attempts to model a very poorly understood system, the human
cognitive system. Much more immediate and substantial results could be
obtained by modelling a much better understood system, the human digestive
system. Examples of the behavior of a working prototype system on simulated
food input, drawn from a number of illustrative food-domains, including
a four-star French restaurant and a garbage pail. Applications of AD:
automatic restaurant reviewing, automatic test-marketing of new food
products, and vicarious eating for the diet-conscious and orally impaired.
[Forget about expert systems; this is the hot new area for the 80's!]
4:30PM
AISNE Business Meeting (Yes, some of us stayed till the end!)
Next year's meeting will held at Boston University. The position of
programme chairman is still open.
A Final Remark:
All the above is based on my own notes of the conference. At the very
least it reflects my own interests and pre-occupations. Considering
the disorganized state of my notes, and the late hour I'm typing this,
a lot of the above may be just wrong. My apologies to anyone I've
misrepresented; by all means correct me. I hope the general interest of
this report to the AI community outweighs all these failings. LJK
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End of AIList Digest
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