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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 110
AIList Digest Friday, 24 Aug 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 110
Today's Topics:
Inexact Reasoning - Panel Discussion at AAAI-84,
LISP - VAX VMS LISP,
AI Tools - IBM-PC/Family Tools & Expert System Planner & Taxonomy,
Expert Systems - Question about HEARSAY-II,
Games - Chess Strategy and Protocols,
Seminar - WYSIWYG Programming
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 84 08:29:19 PDT
From: Koenraad Lecot <koen@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>
Subject: Inexact Reasoning Panel Discussion at AAAI-84
Does anybody have a tape and/or summary of what has been said during
the AAAI-84 panel discussion on inexact reasoning ?
-- Koenraad Lecot
Arpa : koen@ucla-locus
uucp : ...ucla-cs!koen
------------------------------
Date: 18 Aug 84 10:49:50-PDT (Sat)
From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!akgua!mcnc!ncsu!uvacs!gmf @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: VAX VMS LISP ?
Article-I.D.: uvacs.1453
I would appreciate information about LISP interpreters for a VAX
11/780 running VMS. Thanks in advance.
Gordon Fisher
...uvacs!gmf
------------------------------
Date: 22 Aug 84 8:18:16-PDT (Wed)
From: ihnp4!mhuxl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!rti!rti-sel!crm @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: VAX VMS LISP ?
Article-I.D.: rti-sel.1182
Check out Common LISP, a new product for VMS which (I am told) is very like
InterLISP...
You can buy the book about it from Digital Press. Call your local DEC office
for details.
Charlie Martin
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 84 14:38 MST
From: LMiller%pco@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: AI tools for IBM-PC/family
I am looking for leads for two kinds of tools to run on models of the
IBM-PC (or compatibles). The tools are: 1) expert system building tools
(have seen Expert-Ease and M.1 and need more than just a good LISP/PROLOG)
and 2) CAE graphic design aids for software engineers (a la CAD tools
for hardware). I know such tools exist for somewhat large machines
(e.g. Vaxen, Appollo, Sun ...) but our needs are for something on the
order of a super/micro. If you've seen such tools and can provide phone
numbers or addresses of vendors I would appreciate your help. Thanks
Lance Miller
(LMiller%pco@CISL)
------------------------------
Date: 22 Aug 84 15:05:41-PDT (Wed)
From: ihnp4!drutx!druxx!jlmalito @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: expert system ``planner'' wanted
Article-I.D.: druxx.604
We are currently planning on building a UNIX-based expert system to
handle ``system administration'' on a computer system. My plan is to
build a knowledge base containing facts about the computer system, as
well as descriptions of possible actions and their consequences. The
expert system would be presented with a description of the current world,
and a goal. The planner (``inference engine'') will determine what
actions are needed to get from the current world to a goal state.
Due to time constraints, we are trying to find a planner that can
accomplish the task described above. If anyone knows of such a planner
(or a system containing one), please contact me. We need source,
preferably for a UNIX system. Anything close will do. We would
consider any purchase agreement and gladly accept freebies.
Quick responses would be appreciated. (Also, any ``Have you
checked...?'' would be great.)
Any responses of general interest will be posted.
thanks,
Jeanine L. Malito
{ihnp4,allegra}!druxx!jlmalito
AT&T Information Systems
Rm. 30G73
11900 N. Pecos St.
Denver CO 80234
303-538-3859
------------------------------
Date: 24 Aug 84 0:40:07 EDT
From: KYLE.WBST@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: Taxonomic System
RE: BILL MANN'S REQUEST FOR TAXONOMY INFO.
IN THE LATE 1960'S, CESARE CACERES DEVELOPED PROGRAMS TO ANALYZE EKG
HEART WAVEFORMS WITH THE U.S. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE IN ORDER TO CLASSIFY
PATTERNS THAT DEVIATED FROM THE NORM TO SPOT EARLY HEALTH PROBLEMS.
HE ALSO DEVELOPED STREP THROAT BACTERIA CLASSIFICATION PROGRAMS IN
CONJUNCTION WITH THE HOFFMAN LA ROCHE COMPANY.
ABOUT THIS SAME TIME, SANDIA LABS DEVELOPED A BACTERIA CLASSIFICATION
PROGRAM.
ALSO AT ABOUT THIS SAME TIME THE ARMY AT EDGEWOOD ARSENAL DEVELOPED A
CLASSIFICATION PROGRAM FOR VARIOUS CHEMICALS THAT HAD TOXIC PROPERTIES.
MOST OF THE INFO ON THESE DEVELOPMENTS ARE IN THE OPEN LITERATURE IN THE
OLD ASTIA DOCUMENT CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM.
------------------------------
Date: 22 Aug 1984 22:05:18-PDT
From: doshi%umn-cs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
Subject: Question about HEARSAY-II.
I have a question about the HEARSAY-II system [Erman et.al.1980].
What exactly is the HEARSAY system required/supposed to do ?
i.e. what is the meaning of the phrase :
"Speech Understanding system"
Honestly, I did go thru [Erman+ 1980] carefully. I can quote the following :
page 213 : "The HEARSAY-II system....represents both a specific
solution to the speech-understanding problem and a
general framework for co-ordinating independent
processes to achieve cooperative problem solving
behaviour."
page 213 : "The HEARSAY-II reconstructs an intention .... "
page 214 : "The HEARSAY-II recognises connected speech in .... "
page 234 : (this is a footnote)
"IBM has been funding work with somewhat different
objective... Its stated goals mandate little reliance
on the strong syntactic/semantic/task constraints
exploited by the DARPA projects. This orientation is
usually dubbed SPEECH RECOGNITION as distinguished
from SPEECH UNDERSTANDING."
page 233 : "DARPA speech understanding system performance goals.....
------------- -----
The system should
- Accept connected speech
- from many
- cooperative speakers of the General American Dialect
- in a quiet room
- using a good-quality microphone
- with slight tuning per speaker
- requiring only natural adaption by the user
- permitting a slightly selected vocabularu of 1000 words
- with a slightly artificial syntax and highly
constrained task
- providing graceful interaction
- tolerating less than 10 % semantic error
[this is the only direct reference to `understanding`
or `semantics`]
- ....... "
Let me explain my confusion with examples. Does the system do one of the
following :
- 1) Accepts speech as input; Then, tries to output what (ever) was
spoken or might have been spoken ?
- 2) Or, accept speech as input and UNDERSTAND it ?
Now, the 1) above is, I think speech RECOGNITION. DARPA did not want just that.
Then, what is(are) the meaning(s) of UNDERSTAND ?
- if I say "Alligators can fly", should the system repeat this and also
tell me that that is "not true"; is this called UNDERSTANDING ??
- if I say "I go house", should the system repeat this and also add that
there is a "grammetical error"; is this called UNDERSTANDING ??
- Or, if HAYES-ROTH claims "I am ERMAN", the system should say
"No, You are not ERMAN" - I dont think that HEARSAY was supposedd
to do this (it does not have Vision etc). But you will agree that
that is also UNDERSTANDING. Note that the above claim by
HAYES-ROTH would be true if :
- he had changed his last name
- he was merely QUOTING what ERMAN might have said somewhere
- etc
So, could someone (the original authors of HEARSAY-II, perhaps)
respond to the question :
In light of the above examples, what does it mean by
saying that HEARSAY-II understands speech ?
Thank you.
-- raj
Graduate student
U. of Minnesota
CSNET : doshi.umn-cs@csnet-relay
Reference : L.D.Erman, F.Hayes-Roth, Victor Lesser and D.R.Reddy
"The Hearsay-II speech Understanding System : Integrating
Knowledge to resolve uncertainity."
ACM Computing Surveys, Vol 12, No 2, June 1980.
------------------------------
Date: Thu Aug 23 14:47:43 1984
From: mclure@sri-prism
Subject: number-cruncher vs. humans: 9th move
[...]
The Machine Moves
-----------------
Depth Move Time for search Nodes Machine's Estimate
8 ply cxd4 18 hours, 7 minutes 6.5x10^7 +=
The Game So Far
---------------
1. e4 c5 6. Re1 a6
2. Nf3 d6 7. Bf1 e5
3. Bb5+ Nc6 8. d4 cxd4
4. o-o Bd7 9. cxd4
5. c3 Nf6
Commentary
----------
[...]
Tli@Usc-Eclb, USCF ?
Unfortunately, the voting will also keep out the inspired moves. So
we get an average game of all playing....
SLOAN@WASHINGTON
8. ... b5
It is worth noting a classical problem here in building a chess program:
1) The machine was following its book until this move,
2) As White, the machine should enjoy AT LEAST EQUALITY in the first
position following "book" recommendations,
3) However, having switched from "book" evaluation to its own
opening/middle game evaluation, the machine now decides that it
doesn't much like this position after all!
There are several possibilities:
0) Black is superior in the starting position (unlikely!)
1) the book (at least this line) is inferior, and the machine should
discard it (anyone out there think that the Prestige will do
this?)
2) the book is (objectively) correct, but this line does not match
the playing "style" of the machine (i.e., the position is OK, but
the machine doesn't know the correct thematic continuations, and
hence will indeed find the position to be difficult.)
This last possibility is most likely, and is not limited to machine
play. Many human players have the same problem when they memorize
columns and columns of analysis without understanding the REASONS for
the evaluations at the ends of the columns. This leads to post-mortem
conversations of the form "That master isn't so strong; I had him
CRUSHED in the opening...but he SOMEHOW escaped to a dead drawn
ending - he didn't even know that it was theoretically drawn - he
refused my draw offer! - I was so mad at him for that that I lost my
concentration for 1 move and hung a piece."
EWG@Cmu-Cs-Ps1, USCF ?
The comment that the group of humans won't have a
long term strategy is, I think, naieve. It is just
as easy for us to analyze lines of play (e.g.
kingside vs queenside attack, try to trade off and
queen a pawn, etc.) as it is for us to analyze the
single position. If anything it's somewhat easier,
since we think about that anyway. Why not solicit
votes on that level as well and at least report the
judgement (if not allowing it to directly choose the
move at hand, which would be rash). A suggestion
for later in the game, at least. This harkens back
to memories of 10 or so years ago when I was still
reading the chess books, and ran across a comment by
one of the grandmasters (Sam Reshevski, I think?)
who liked to play blitz and always used the style of
spending a significant time thinking about lines of
play at the start of the middle game.
His strategy was to have the lines firmly in
mind for later play. The comment was that his
opponents often got bored waiting for him to reply
at that time and wasted the real time; he could then
play at blitz pace much better as the game
progressed and the opponent struggled for the right
line(s) of play. It also had the surface appearance
of him putting himself deliberately
in time trouble, which wasn't the case.
Replies to Arpanet: mclure@sri-unix or Usenet: sri-unix!mclure.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 84 16:15:48 PDT
From: Guy M. Lohman <lohman%ibm-sj.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Reply-to: IBM-SJ Calendar <CALENDAR%ibm-sj.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: Seminar - WYSIWYG Programming
[Forwarded from the SRI-AI bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
IBM San Jose Research Lab
5600 Cottle Road
San Jose, CA 95193
Wed., Aug. 29 Computer Science Seminar
10:00 A.M. WYSIWYG PROGRAMMING
2C-012 Though single-user workstation hardware has evolved
rapidly to the point of rivaling the mainframes of a
few years ago, software has generally failed to keep
pace. "What you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG)
software for text processing and other applications
has shown the feasibility of performing applications
by direct manipulations of visual objects. But
programming languages are still based on a
"typewriter" model of communication which has
remained essentially unchanged since the 1950's.
This model has now been antiquated by the advent of
high resolution displays and accurate pointing
devices. WYSIWYG applications are often dramatically
easier to use than their traditional command-based
counterparts. This talk will describe a project to
design and prototype an interactive facility for
building programs as WYSIWYG objects, by capturing
direct manipulations of visual objects on a display
screen. The resulting programs are animations which
act like virtual users, doing the same things that a
real user can do. Building these programs is totally
continuous with normal hands-on manipulation of the
objects, while writing programs in traditional
programming languages is quite discordant with that
process.
D. Hatfield, IBM Cambridge Scientific Center
Host: D. Chamberlin
[...]
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End of AIList Digest
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