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AIList Digest Volume 1 Issue 083
AIList Digest Friday, 28 Oct 1983 Volume 1 : Issue 83
Today's Topics:
AI Jargon - Definitions,
Unification - Request,
Rational Psychology - Definition,
Conferences - Computers and the Law & FORTH Proceedings,
Seminars - AI at ADL & Theorem Proving
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Date: 26 October 1983 1048-PDT (Wednesday)
From: abbott at AEROSPACE (Russ Abbott)
Subject: Definitions of AI Terms
The IEEE is in the process of preparing a dictionary of computer terms.
Included will be AI-related terms. Does anyone know of existing sets of
definitions?
In future messages I expect to circulate draft definitions for comment.
------------------------------
Date: 26 Oct 83 16:46:09 EDT (Wed)
From: decvax!duke!unc!bts@Berkeley
Subject: Unification
Ken,
I posted this to USENET a week ago. Since it hasn't shown
up in the AIList, I suspect that it didn't make it to SRI [...].
[Correct, we must have a faulty connection. -- KIL]
Bruce
P.S. As an astute USENET reader pointed out, I perhaps should have said
that a unifier makes the terms "syntactically equal". I thought it
was clear from context.
=====================================================================
From: unc!bts (Bruce Smith)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Title: Unification Query
Article-I.D.: unc.6030
Posted: Wed Oct 19 01:23:46 1983
Received: Wed Oct 19 01:23:46 1983
I'm interested in anything new on unification algo-
rithms. In case some readers don't know what I'm talking
about, I'll give a short description of the problem and some
references I know of. Experts-- the ones I'm really
interested in reaching-- may skip to the last paragraph.
Given a set of terms (in some language) containing
variables, the unification problem is to find a 'unifier',
that is, a substitution for the variables in those terms
which would make the terms equal. Moreover, the unifier
should be a 'most general unifier', that is, any other unif-
iers should be extensions of it. Resolution theorem-provers
and logic programming languages like Prolog depend on
unification-- though the Prolog implementations I'm familiar
with "cheat". (See Clocksin and Mellish's "Programming in
Prolog", p. 219.)
Unification seems to be a very active topic. The paper
"A short survey on the state of the art in matching and
unification problems", by Raulefs, Siekmann, Szabo and
Unvericht, in the May 1979 issue of the SIGSAM Bulletin,
contains a bibliography of over 90 articles. And, "An effi-
cient unification algorithm", by Martelli and Montanari, in
the April 1982 ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and
Systems, gives a (very readable) discussion of the effi-
ciency of various unification algorithms. A programming
language has even been based on unification: "Uniform-- A
language based on unification which unifies (much of) Lisp,
Prolog and Act1" by Kahn in IJCAI-81.
So, does anyone out there in network-land have a unifi-
cation bibliography more recent that 1979? If it's on-line,
would you please post it to USENET's net.ai? If not, where
can we get a copy?
Bruce Smith, UNC-Chapel Hill
decvax!duke!unc!bts (USENET)
bts.unc@udel-relay (other NETworks)
------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 26-Oct-83 18:42:21-GMT
From: RICHARD HPS (on ERCC DEC-10) <okeefe.r.a.@edxa>
Reply-to: okeefe.r.a. <okeefe.r.a.%edxa@ucl-cs>
Subject: Rational Psychology
If you were thinking of saying something about "Rational Psychology"
and haven't read the article, PLEASE restrain yourself. It appeared in
Volume 4 Issue 3 (Autumn 83) of "The AI Magazine", and is pages 50-54 of
that issue. It isn't hard to get AI Magazine. AAAI members get it. I'm
not a member, but DAI Edinburgh has a subscription and I read it in the
library. I am almost tempted to join AAAI for the AI magazine alone, it
is good value.
The "Rational" in Rational Psychology modifies Psychology the same
way Rational modifies Mechanics in Rational Mechanics or Thermodynamics
in Rational Thermodynamics. It does NOT contrast with "the psychology
of emotion" but with Experimental Psychology or Human Psychology. Here
is a paragraph from the paper in question:
" The aim of rational psychology is understanding, just as in any
other branch of mathematics. Where much of what is labelled "mathematical
psychology" consists of microscopic mathematical problems arising in the
non-mathematical prosecution of human psychology, or in the exposition of
informal theories with invented symbols substituting for equally precise
words, rational psychology seeks to understand the structure of
psychological concepts and theories by means of the most fit mathematical
concepts and strict proofs, by suspiciously analyzing the informally
developed notions to reveal their essence and structure, to allow debate
on their interpretation to be phrased precisely, with consequences of
choices seen mathematically. The aim is not simply to further informal
psychology, but to understand it instead, not necessarily to solve
problems as stated, but to see if they are proper problems at all by
investigating their formulations. "
There is nothing in this, or any other part of the paper, that would
exclude the study of emotions from Rational Psychology. Indeed, unless or
until we encounter another intelligent race, Rational Psychology seems to
offer the only way to telling whether there are emotions that human beings
cannot experience.
My only criticism of Doyle's programme (note spelling, I am not
talking about a computer program) is that I think we are as close to a
useful Rational Psychology as Galileo was to Rational Mechanics or Carnot
was to Rational Thermodynamics. I hope other people disagree with me and
get cracking on it. Any progress at all in this area would be useful.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 83 07:50:56 pdt
From: ihnp4!utcsrgv!dave@Berkeley
Subject: Computers and the Law
Dalhousie University is sponsoring a computer conference under
CONFER on an MTS system at Wayne State University in Michigan.
The people in the conference include lawyers interested in computers
as well as computer science types interested in law.
Topics of discussion include computer applications to law, legal issues
such as patents, copyrights and trade secrets in the context of computers,
CAI in legal education, and AI in law.
For those who aren't familiar with Confer, it provides a medium which
is somewhat more structured than Usenet for discussions. People post
"items", and "discussion responses" are grouped chronologically (and
kept forever) under the item. All of the files are on one machine only.
The conference is just starting up. Dalhousie has obtained a grant to
fund everyone's participation, which means anyone who is interested
can join for free. Access is through Telenet or Datapac, and the
collect charges are picked up by the grant.
If anyone is interested in joining this conference (called Law:Forum),
please drop me a line.
Dave Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
Osgoode Hall
Toronto, Ont.
Canada M5H 2N6
(416) 947-3466
decvax!utzoo!utcsrgv!dave@BERKELEY (ARPA)
{ihnp4,cornell,floyd,utzoo} !utcsrgv!dave (UUCP)
------------------------------
Date: Thu 27 Oct 83 10:22:48-PDT
From: WYLAND@SRI-KL.ARPA
Subject: FORTH Convention Proceedings
I have been told that there will be no formal proceedings of the
FORTH convention, but that articles will appear in "FORTH
Dimensions", the magazine/journal of the FORTH Interest Group.
This journal publishes technical articles about FORTH methods and
techniques, algorithms, applications, and standards. It is
available for $15.00/year from the following address:
FORTH Interest Group
P.O. Box 1105
San Carlos, CA 94070
415-962-8653
As you may know, Mountain View Press carries most of the
available literature for FORTH, including the proceedings of the
various technical conferences such as the FORTH Application
Conferences at the University of Rochester and the FORML
conferences. I highly reccommend them as a source of FORTH
literature. Their address is:
Mountain View Press, Inc.
P.O. Box 4656
Mountain View, CA 94040
415-961-4103
I hope this helps.
Dave Wyland
WYLAND@SRI
------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 26 October 1983 14:55 edt
From: TJMartin.ADL@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (Thomas J. Martin)
Subject: Seminar Announcement
PLACE: Arthur D. Little, Inc.
Acorn Park (off Rte. 2 near Rte. 2/Rte. 16 rotary)
Cambridge MA
DATE: October 31, 1983
TIME: 8:45 AM, ADL Auditorium
TOPIC: "Artificial Intelligence at ADL -- Activities, Progress, and Plans"
SPEAKER: Dr. Karl M. Wiig, Director of ADL AI Program
ABSTRACT: ADL'ss AI program has been underway for four months. A core group
of staff has been recruited from several sections in the company
and trained. Symbolics 3600 and Xerox 1100 machines have been
installed and are now operational.
The seminar will discuss research in progress at ADL in:
expert systems, natural language, and knowledge engineering tools.
------------------------------
Date: Wed 26 Oct 83 20:11:52-PDT
From: Doug Lenat <LENAT@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: CS Colloq, Tues 11/1 Jussi Ketonen
[Reprinted from the SU-SCORE bboard.]
CS Colloquium, Tuesday, November 1, 4:15pm Terman Auditorium
(refreshments at 3:45 at the 3rd floor lounge of MJH)
SPEAKER: Dr. Jussi Ketonen, Stanford University CS Department
TITLE: A VIEW OF THEOREM-PROVING
I'll be discussing the possibility of developing powerful
expert systems for mathematical reasoning - a domain characterized by
highly abbreviated symbolic manipulations whose logical complexity
tends to be rather low. Of particular interest will be the proper
role of meta theory, high-order logic, logical decision procedures,
and rewriting. I will argue for a different, though equally
important, role for the widely misunderstood notion of meta theory.
Most of the discussion takes place in the context of EKL, an
interactive theorem-proving system under development at Stanford. It
has been used to prove facts about Lisp programs and combinatorial
set theory.
I'll describe some of the features of the language of EKL,
the underlying rewriting system, and the algorithms used for
high-order unification with some examples.
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End of AIList Digest
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