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AIList Digest Volume 1 Issue 116
AIList Digest Friday, 23 Dec 1983 Volume 1 : Issue 116
Today's Topics:
Optics - Request for Camera Design,
Neurophysiology - Split Brain Research,
Expert Systems - System Size,
AI Funding - New Generation Computing,
Science - Definition
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Date: Wed, 21 Dec 83 14:43:29 PST
From: Philip Kahn <v.kahn@UCLA-LOCUS>
Subject: REFERENCES FOR SPECIALIZED CAMERA DESIGN USING FIBER OPTICS
In a conventional TV camera, the image falls upon a staring
array of transducers. The problem is that it is very difficult to
get very close to the focal point of the optical system using this
technology.
I am looking for a design of a camera imaging system
that projects the light image onto a fiber optic bundle.
The optical fibers are used to transport the light falling upon
each pixel away from the camera focal point so that the light
may be quantitized.
I'm sure that such a system has already been designed, and
I would greatly appreciate any references that would be appropriate
to this type of application. I need to computer model such a system,
so the pertinent optical physics and related information would be
MOST useful.
If there are any of you that might be interested in this
type of camera system, please contact me. It promises to provide
the degree of resolution which is a constraint in many vision
computations.
Visually yours,
Philip Kahn
------------------------------
Date: Wed 21 Dec 83 11:38:36-PST
From: Richard F. Lyon <DLyon at SRI-KL>
Subject: Re: AIList Digest V1 #115
In reply to <majka@ubc-vision.UUCP> on left/right brain research:
Most of the work on split brains and hemispheric specialization
has been done at Caltech by Dr. Roger Sperry and colleagues. The 1983
Caltech Biology annual report has 5 pages of summary results, and 11
recent references by Sperry's group. Previous year annual reports
have similar amounts. I will mail copies if given an address.
Dick Lyon
DLYON@SRI-KL
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Date: Wednesday, 21 December 1983 13:48:54 EST
From: John.Laird@CMU-CS-H
Subject: Haunt and other production systems.
A few facts on productions systems.
1. Haunt consists of 1500 productions and requires 160K words of memory on a
KL10. (So Frumps is a bit bigger than Haunt.)
2. Expert systems (R1, XSEL and PTRANS) written in a similar language
consist of around 1500-2500 productions.
3. An expert system to perform VLSI design (DAA) consists of around 200
productions.
------------------------------
Date: 19 Dec 83 17:37:56-PST (Mon)
From: decvax!dartvax!lorien @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Re: Humanistic Japanese vs. Military Americans
Article-I.D.: dartvax.536
Does anyone know of any groups doing serious AI in the U.S. or Europe
that emulate the Japanese attitude?
--Lorien
------------------------------
Date: Wed 21 Dec 83 13:04:21-PST
From: Andy Freeman <ANDY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Re: AIList Digest V1 #115
"If the U.S. program is aimed at military applications, that's what it
will produce. Any commercial or industrial spinoff will be
incidental."
It doesn't matter what DoD and the Japanese project aim for. We're
not talking about a spending a million on designing bullets but
something much more like the space program. The meat of that
specification was "American on Moon with TV camera" but look what else
happened. Also, the goal was very low volume, but many of the
products aren't.
Hardware, which is probably the majority of the specification, could
be where the crossover will be greatest. Even if they fail to get "a
lisp machine in every tank", they'll succeed in making one for an
emergency room. (Camping gear is a recent example of something
similar.) Yes, they'll be able to target software applications, but
at least the tools, skills, and people move. What distinguishes a US
Army database system anyway?
I can understand the objection that the DoD shouldn't have "all those
cycles", but that isn't one of the choices. (How they are to be used
is, but not through the research.) The new machines are going to be
built - if nothing else the Dod can use Japanese ones. Even if all
other things were equal, I don't think the economic ones are, why
should they have all the fun?
-andy
------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 21 December 1983, 19:27-EST
From: Hewitt at MIT-MC
Subject: New Generation Computing: Japanese and U.S. motivations
Ron,
For better or worse, I do not believe that you can determine what will
be the motivations or structure of either the MITI Fifth Generation
effort or the DARPA Strategic Computing effort by citing chapter and
verse from the two reports which you have quoted.
/Carl
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 83 22:55:04 EST
From: BRINT <abc@brl-bmd>
Subject: AI Funding - New Generation Computing
It seems to me that intelligent folks like AIList readers
should realize that the only reason Japan can fund peaceful
and humanitarian research to the exclusion of
military projects is that the United States provides the
military protection and security guarantees (out of our own
pockets) that make this sort of thing possible.
(I believe Al Davis said it well in the last Digest.)
------------------------------
Date: 22 Dec 83 13:52:20 EST
From: STEINBERG@RUTGERS.ARPA
Subject: Strategic Computing: Defense vs Commerce
Yes, it is a sad fact about American society that a project like
Strategic Computing will only be funded if it is presented as a
defense issue rather than a commercial/economic one. (How many people
remember that the original name for the Interstate Highway system had
the word "Defense" in it?) This is something we can and
should work to change, but I do not believe that it is the kind of
thing that can be changed in a year or two. So, we are faced with the
choice of waiting until we change society, or getting the AI work done
in a way that is not perfectly optimal for producing
commercial/economic results.
It should be noted that achieving the military goals will require very
large advances in the underlying technology that will certainly have
very large effects on non-military AI. It is not just a vague hope
for a few spinoffs. So while doing it the DOD way may not be optimal
it is not horrendously sub-optimal.
There is, of course, a moral issue of whether we want the military to
have the kinds of capabilities implied by the Strategic Computing
plan. However, if the answer is no then you cannot do the work under
any funding source. If the basic technology is achieved in any way,
then the military will manage to use it for their purposes.
------------------------------
Date: 18 Dec 83 19:47:50-PST (Sun)
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!parsec!ctvax!uokvax!andree @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Re: Information sciences vs. physical sc - (nf)
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4598
The definitions of Science that were offered, in defense of
"computer Science" being a science, were just irrelevant.
A field can lay claim to Science, if it uses the "scientific method"
to make advances, that is:
Hypotheses are proposed.
Hypotheses are tested by objective experiments.
The experiments are objectively evaluated to prove or
disprove the hypotheses.
The experiments are repeatable by other people in other places.
- Keremath, care of:
Robison
decvax!ittvax!eosp1
or: allegra!eosp1
I have to disagree. Your definition of `science' excludes at least one
thing that almost certainly IS a science: astronomy. The major problem
here is that most astronomers (all extra-solar astronomers) just can not
do experiments. Which is why they call it `obervational astronomy.'
I would guess what is needed is three (at least) flavors of science:
1) experimental sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, psychology.
Any field that uses the `scientific method.'
2) observational sciences: astronomy, sociology, etc. Any field that,
for some reason or another, must be satisfied with observing
phenomena, and cannot perform experiments.
3) ? sciences: mathematics, some cs, probably others. Any field that
explores the universe of the possible, as opposed to the universe of
the actual.
What should the ? be? I don't know. I would tend to favor `logical,' but
something tells me a lot of people will object.
<mike
------------------------------
Date: 21 Dec 1983 14:36-PST
From: fc%usc-cse%USC-ECL@SRI-NIC
Subject: Re: AIList Digest V1 #115
Th reference to Kuhn's 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'
is appreciated, but if you take a good look at the book itself, you
will find it severely lacking in scientific practice. Besides being
palpably inconsistent, Kuhn's book claims several facts about history
that are not correct, and uses them in support of his arguments. One of
his major arguments is that historians rewrite the facts, thus he acted
in this manner to rewrite facts to support his contentions. He defined
a term 'paradigm' inconsistently, and even though it is in common use
today, it has not been consistently defined yet. He also made several
other inconsistent definitions, and has even given up this view of
science (if you bother to read the other papers written after his book).
It just goes to show you, you shouldn't believe everything you read,
Fred
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End of AIList Digest
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