Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
AIList Digest Volume 1 Issue 104
AIList Digest Monday, 28 Nov 1983 Volume 1 : Issue 104
Today's Topics:
Information Retrieval - Request,
Programming Languages - Lisp Productivity,
AI and Society - Expert Systems,
AI Funding - Capitalistic AI,
Humor - Problem with Horn Clauses,
Seminar - Introspective Problem Solver,
Graduate Program - Social Impacts at UC-Irvine
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 27 Nov 83 11:41 EST
From: Ed Fox <fox.vpi@Rand-Relay>
Subject: Request for machine readable volumes, info. on retrieval
projects
Please send details of how to obtain any machine readable documents such
as books, reference volumes, encyclopedias, dictionaries, journals, etc.
These would be utilized for experiments in information retrieval. This
is not aimed at large bibliographic databases but rather at finding
a few medium to long items that exist both in book form and full text
computer tape versions (readable under UNIX or VMS).
Information on existing or planned projects for retrieval of passages
(e.g., paragraphs or pages) from books, encyclopedias, electronic mail
digests, etc. would also be helpful.
I look forward to your reply. Thanks in advance, Ed Fox.
Dr. Edward A. Fox, Dept. of Computer Science, 562 McBryde Hall,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI&SU or Virginia Tech),
Blacksburg, VA 24061; (703)961-5113 or 6931; fox%vpi@csnet-relay via csnet,
foxea%vpivm1.bitnet@berkeley via bitnet
------------------------------
Date: 25 Nov 83 22:47:27-PST (Fri)
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!smu!leff @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: lisp productivity question - (nf)
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4149
Is anybody aware of study's on productivity studies for lisp?
1. Can lisp programmers program in lisp at the same number of
lines per day,week,month as in 'regular' languages like pascal, pl/1, etc.
2. Has anybody tried to write a fairly large program that normally would
be done in lisp in a regular language and compared the number of lines
ratio.
In APL, a letter to Comm. ACM reported that APL programs took one fifth
the number of lines as equivalent programs in regular language and took
about twice as long per line to debug. Thus APL improved the productivity
to get a function done by about a factor of two. I am curious if anything
similar has been done for lisp.
[One can, off course, write any APL program body as a single line.
I suspect it would not take much longer to write that way, but it
would be impossible to modify a week later. Much the same could be
said for undocumented and poorly structured Lisp code. -- KIL]
------------------------------
Date: 22 Nov 83 21:01:33-PST (Tue)
From: decvax!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!akgua!psuvax!lewis @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Re:Re: just a reminder... - (nf)
Article-I.D.: psuvax.359
Why should it be dangerous to have machines treating the poor? There
is no reason to believe that human experts will always be superior to
machines; in fact, a carefully designed expert system could embody all
the skill of the world's best diagnosticians. In addition, an expert
system would never get tired or complain about its pay. On the
other hand, perhaps you are worried about the machine lacking 'human'
insight or compassion. I don't think anyone is suggesting that these
qualities can or should be built into such a system. Perhaps we will
see a new generation of medical personnel whose job will be to use the
available AI facilities to make the most accurate diagnoses, and help
patients interface with the system. This will provide patients with
the best medical knowledge available, and still allow personal interaction
between patients and technicians.
-jim lewis
psuvax!lewis
------------------------------
Date: 24 Nov 83 22:46:53-PST (Thu)
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uokvax!emjej @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Re: just a reminder... - (nf)
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4127
Re sending machines where doctors won't go: do you really think that it's
better that poor people not be treated at all than treated by a machine?
That's a bit much for me to swallow.
James Jones
------------------------------
Date: 22 Nov 83 19:37:14-PST (Tue)
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!Anonymous @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Capitalistic AICapitalistic AI - (nf)
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4071
Have you had your advisor leave to make megabucks in industry?
Seriously, I feel that this is a major problem for AI. There
is an extremely limited number of AI professors and a huge demand from
venture capitalists to set them up in a new company. Even fresh PhD's
are going to be disappearing into industry when they can make several
times the money they would in academia. The result is an acute (no
make that terminal) shortage of professors to oversee the new research
generation. The monetary imbalance can only grow as AI grows.
At this university (UI) there are lots (hundreds?) of undergrads
who want to study AI; and about 8 professors to teach them. Maybe the
federal government ought to recognize that this imbalance hurts our
technological competitiveness. What will prevent academic flight?
Will IBM, Digital, and WANG support professors or will they start
hiring them away?
Here are a few things needed to keep the schools strong:
1) Higher salaries for profs in "critical areas."
(maybe much higher)
2) Long term funding of research centers.
(buildings, equipment, staff)
3) University administration support for capitalizing
on the results of research, either through making
it easy for a professor to maintain a dual life, or
by setting up a university owned company to develop
and sell the results of research.
------------------------------
Date: 14 Nov 83 17:26:03-PST (Mon)
From: harpo!floyd!clyde!akgua!psuvax!burdvax!sjuvax!bbanerje @ Ucb-Vax
Subject: Problem with Horn Clauses.
Article-I.D.: sjuvax.140
As a novice to Prolog, I have a problem determining whether a
clause is Horn, or non Horn.
I understand that a clause of the form :
A + ~B + ~C is a Horn Clause,
While one of the form :
A + B + ~C is non Horn.
However, my problem comes when trying to determine if the
following Clause is Horn or non-Horn.
------------\
/ _ \
/_________ / \__**
_# # **
(_ o o _) __________
xx ! xx ! HO HO HO !
xxx \_/xxx __/-----------
xxxxxxxxxx
Happy Holidays Everyone!
-- Binayak Banerjee
{bpa!astrovax!burdvax}!sjuvax!bbanerje
------------------------------
Date: 11/23/83 11:48:29
From: AGRE
Subject: John Batali at the AI Revolving Seminar 30 November
[Forwarded by SASW@MIT-MC]
John Batali
Trying to build an introspective problem-solver
Wednesday 30 November at 4PM
545 Tech Sq 8th floor playroom
Abstract:
I'm trying to write a program that understands how it works, and uses
that understanding to modify and improve its performance. In this
talk, I'll describe what I mean by "an introspective problem-solver",
discuss why such a thing would be useful, and give some ideas about
how one might work.
We want to be able to represent how and why some course of action is
better than another in certain situations. If we take reasoning to be
a kind of action, then we want to be able to represent considerations
that might be relevant during the process of reasoning. For this
knowledge to be useful the program must be able to reason about itself
reasoning, and the program must be able to affect itself by its
decisions.
A program built on these lines cannot think about every step of its
reasoning -- because it would never stop thinking about "how to think
about" whatever it is thinking about. On the other hand, we want it
to be possible for the program to consider any and all of its
reasoning steps. The solution to this dilemma may be a kind of
"virtual reasoning" in which a program can exert reasoned control over
all aspects of its reasoning process even if it does not explicitly
consider each step. This could be implemented by having the program
construct general reasoning plans which are then run like programs in
specific situations. The program must also be able to modify
reasoning plans if they are discovered to be faulty. A program with
this ability could then represent itself as an instance of a reasoning
plan.
Brian Smith's 3-LISP achieves what he calls "reflective" access and
causal connection: A 3-LISP program can examine and modify the state
of its interpreter as it is running. The technical tricks needed to
make this work will also find their place in an introspective
problem-solver.
My work has involved trying to make sense of these issues, as well as
working on a representation of planning and acting that can deal with
real world goals and constraints as well as with those of the planning
and plan-execution processes.
------------------------------
Date: 25 Nov 1983 1413-PST
From: Rob-Kling <Kling.UCI-20B@Rand-Relay>
Subject: Social Impacts Graduate Program at UC-Irvine
CORPS
-------
A Graduate Program on
Computing, Organizations, Policy, and Society
at the University of California, Irvine
This interdisciplinary program at the University of California,
Irvine provides an opportunity for scholars and students to
investigate the social dimensions of computerization in a setting
which supports reflective and sustained inquiry.
The primary educational opportunities are a PhD programs in the
Department of Information and Computer Science (ICS) and MS and PhD
programs in the Graduate School of Management (GSM). Students in each
program can specialize in studying the social dimensions of computing.
Several students have recieved graduate degrees from ICS and GSM for
studying topics in the CORPS program.
The faculty at Irvine have been active in this area, with many
interdisciplinary projects, since the early 1970's. The faculty and
students in the CORPS program have approached them with methods drawn
from the social sciences.
The CORPS program focuses upon four related areas of inquiry:
1. Examining the social consequences of different kinds of
computerization on social life in organizations and in the larger
society.
2. Examining the social dimensions of the work and industrial worlds
in which computer technologies are developed, marketed,
disseminated, deployed, and sustained.
3. Evaluating the effectiveness of strategies for managing the
deployment and use of computer-based technologies.
4. Evaluating and proposing public policies which facilitate the
development and use of computing in pro-social ways.
Studies of these questions have focussed on complex information
systems, computer-based modelling, decision-support systems, the
myriad forms of office automation, electronic funds transfer systems,
expert systems, instructional computing, personal computers, automated
command and control systems, and computing at home. The questions
vary from study to study. They have included questions about the
effectiveness of these technologies, effective ways to manage them,
the social choices that they open or close off, the kind of social and
cultural life that develops around them, their political consequences,
and their social carrying costs.
The CORPS program at Irvine has a distinctive orientation -
(i) in focussing on both public and private sectors,
(ii) in examining computerization in public life as well as within
organizations,
(iii) by examining advanced and common computer-based technologies "in
vivo" in ordinary settings, and
(iv) by employing analytical methods drawn from the social sciences.
Organizational Arrangements and Admissions for CORPS
The primary faculty in the CORPS program hold appointments in the
Department of Information and Computer Science and the Graduate School
of Management. Additional faculty in the School of Social Sciences,
and the Program on Social Ecology, have collaborated in research or
have taught key courses for students in the CORPS program. Research
is administered through an interdisciplinary research institute at UCI
which is part of the Graduate Division, the Public Policy Research
Organization.
Students who wish additional information about the CORPS program
should write to:
Professor Rob Kling (Kling.uci-20b@rand-relay)
Department of Information and Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, Ca. 92717
or to:
Professor Kenneth Kraemer
Graduate School of Management
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, Ca. 92717
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
********************
