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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 094
AIList Digest Sunday, 22 Jul 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 94
Today's Topics:
Expert Systems - INDUCE/PLANT Request,
AI Tools - LOGO & Islisp/Franz Lisp Utility Functions,
News Sources - NEXIS, NEWSNET,
Conferences - AAAI-84 Registration,
Intelligence - Metrics & Understanding & Evolution,
Books - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs,
Linguistics - Tense and Aspect,
Seminars - Second-Order Polymorphic Lambda Calculus
& Probabilistic Analysis of Hierarchical Planning Problems
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 15 Jul 84 12:42:15-PDT (Sun)
From: ihnp4!alberta!calgary!masrani @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: request for information (INDUCE/PLANT expert system)
Article-I.D.: calgary.473
I would appreciate any information (references) on an expert system
called INDUCE/PLANT. Apparantly, this system is able to deduce rules
about diagnosing soybean diseases from cases. Thanks in advance.
Roy Masrani, University of Calgary.
..!alberta!calgary!masrani
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 84 20:53 EDT
From: Jill Smudski <Jill%upenn.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: LOGO implementation
I am looking for an implementation of LOGO to run on a Symbolics 3600 Lisp
Machine. Can anyone send me information about such a thing? Also, any
pointers to current computer science (as opposed to educational) research
with LOGO would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Jill Smudski mailing address: University of Pennsylvania
Moore School rm 66
33rd and Walnut Sts
Philadelphia, PA 19104
------------------------------
Date: 19 Jul 1984 11:38:31-EDT
From: Philip.Kasprzyk at CMU-RI-ISL2
Subject: Islisp/Franz Lisp Utility Functions
[Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
I am building a Lisp Utility Function Library for use in Islisp.
In addition to the built-in Islisp functions dones anyone out there
know of any existing libraries or have any private libraries that
they could contribute to the cause?
Documented functions would be nice but I can live with undocumented
code as long as the functionality of the code is obvious.
If you can help me please send mail to pmk@isl2.
The current status of this project is that I have slightly over 200 functions
which I am in the process of categorizing.
-Thanks
Phil Kasprzyk
------------------------------
Date: 18 Jul 84 8:18:46-PDT (Wed)
From: ihnp4!houxm!mhuxl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!ncsu!uvacs!gmf @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Request for Franz Lisp info
Article-I.D.: uvacs.1375
I will be grateful for information on where to get a Franz Lisp
with its usual library written in C to be run on an Intel 8286
(new, compatible with 8086) running under Xenix ("small" UNIX).
There will be plenty of memory (hard disk). Presumably any
Franz Lisp written in C which will run on a VAX 11/780 using
UNIX will be OK.
Gordon Fisher
c/o CS Dept
Univ of Virginia
Charlottesville, Va 22901
...!mcnc!ncsu!uvacs!gmf
------------------------------
Date: Sat 21 Jul 84 09:56:02-EDT
From: Wayne McGuire <MDC.WAYNE%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: NEXIS, NEWSNET & AI
I would like to know if anyone here has searched occasionally, or
searches regularly, NEXIS and/or NEWSNET (two commercial databases
which store the full text of many leading U.S. magazines and
newsletters). Has anyone found either database to be a particularly
useful source of information about developments in artificial
intelligence and related topics? Opinions, impressions, evaluations,
tips, gripes, etc. would be appreciated.
-- Wayne McGuire --
------------------------------
Date: Sat 21 Jul 84 10:55:04-PDT
From: AAAI-OFFICE <AAAI@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: AAAI-84 Registration
Hello!
We've had an overwhelming response to the AAAI-84 Conference
this year. We have room for 2,600 people for the Technical Program,
and, at this time, we have about 50 seats left. If you expect
to walk-in, please call Kathy Kelly (415-328-3123) to make
some alternate arrangements.
AAAI Office
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 84 00:28 EDT
From: Henry Lieberman <Henry%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: Implicit Definition of Intelligence
I see the fallacy as being that the word "decision" in the article connotes
some willful decision of real significance to a human, such as
"Should I vote for Reagan or Mondale?". The article confuses it in the lay
reader's mind with the computer science sense of "decision", or primitive
conditional, like "If this location is zero, I'll skip to the next
instruction". Obviously, one decision of a person in the former sense
may invovle zillions of primitive conditionals, so the human and
machine "speeds" are not directly comparable.
Why wait for the fifth generation? The Lisp machine I'm using right now is much
smarter than a person, because a person can consciously consider only a few new
subgoals every second, whereas a Lisp machine can do a million function calls a
second.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 84 09:52:55 PDT
From: Adolfo Di-Mare <dimare@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA>
Subject: An interesting implicit definition of intelligence
The following is an even more intelligent program than the one described
in the Lure of AI. Any human being trying to figure it out will die blue
even for small values of n:
n + 1 m = 0
/
AI(m,n) = < AI(m-1,1) n = 0
\
AI(m-1,AI(m,n-1)) otherwise
Adolfo
///
P.S.I The A in the above definition stands for Artificial. The I stands
for Intelligence (it's easy when you know it).
P.S.II I couldn't come up with the Prolog version, which is far more
intelligent.
------------------------------
Date: Thu 19 Jul 84 16:49:27-PDT
From: PEREIRA@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: Re: An interesting implicit definition of intelligence
[In response to my personal query about the "AI"
function in Adolfo DiMare's message. -- KIL]
Yes, that's the Ackermann function. The problem with it for benchmarking
is that it is hyperexponential, and so the intermmediate values soon
become too big to represent (even with bignums!) -- Fernando
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 84 02:26 PDT
From: Gloger.es@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: Re: The Turing Test - machines vs. people
Someone (I no longer have any record of who) apparently said:
>> If a program passes a test in calculus the best we can grant
>> it is that it can pass tests. ...
>> We make the same mistaken assumption about humans--that is
>> that because you can pass a "test" you understand a subject.
To which Dave Seaman replied:
> Suppose the program writes a Ph.D. dissertation and passes its
> "orals"? Then can we say it understands its field? If not,
> then how can we decide that anyone understands anything?
Implicit in the first quote is the answer to the second. We cannot
(absolutely) decide that anyone understands anything, i.e. that
understanding exists, since "understanding" as used here is not a
scientific observable. We can, if we wish, observe the observables,
like test passing. And we can choose to infer from them the existence
of a causative agency for them, like "understanding" for test passing.
But this inference is true only to the extent that we can observe the
agency; and it is valid only to the extent that from it we can deduce
other, observably true and useful facts.
If you're willing for "understanding" to mean some observable thing,
like passing of some tests or other, then you can decide if someone
"understands" something, i.e. if "understanding" exists. Otherwise, you
can't absolutely decide where, when, or how much understanding exists or
doesn't exist.
And ditto the entire preceding discussion with the buzzword
"understanding" replaced by "intelligence." And again, replaced by
"luck." And again, by "soul." And again, by "god."
(Credit for the basis of much of my argument is due to Prof. Andrew J.
Galambos.)
Paul Gloger
<Gloger.es@Xerox.arpa>
------------------------------
Date: 19 Jul 84 11:42:10-PDT (Thu)
From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rochester!ritcv!ccivax!abh @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: Brain and technology
Article-I.D.: ccivax.183
I beg to add that if the brain did not have advanced coordination
centers for speech and hand, thumbs would be as useful as
your big toes.
Andrew Hudson
--
Christine, strawberry girl,
Christine, banana split lady.....
- Siouxsie & the Banshees
...[rlgvax | decvax | ucbvax!allegra]!rochester!ritcv!ccivax!abh
------------------------------
Date: 20 July 1984 16:51-EDT
From: Hal Abelson <HAL @ MIT-MC>
Subject: publication announcement
The book "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" written
by Gerry Sussman, Julie Sussman, and me has just been published
(jointly by MIT Press and McGraw-Hill).
This book is based on the introductory programming course that we
teach at MIT. All programming is done in the Scheme dialect of Lisp
(which nowadays is the entry-level programming language used at MIT).
We attempt to present an "AI/Lisp"-flavored introduction to the issues
of coping with the complexity of large software systems. We hope that
this point of view can become an alternative to the Pascalitis that
has infected so much of computer science education.
Copies of the book should be available at the Lisp conference and at
AAAI..
------------------------------
Date: Thu 19 Jul 84 16:52:04-PDT
From: Bob Moore <BMOORE@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Tense and Aspect
[Forwarded from the CSLI Newsletter by permission of the author.]
The difficulty of analyzing the semantics of tense and aspect in
natural language has been widely discussed in the past few years, but
I hadn't realized the extent to which this problem plagued medieval
scholars until I found this item in The Oxford Book of Oxford (Jan
Morris, ed.):
Three Oxford academics were deputed to wait upon Henry III
in 1266 to ask permission for a postern gate through the
city wall at Oxford. The King (in Latin) asked them what
they wanted:
First scholar: We ask the licence for the making of a gate
through the city wall.
Second scholar: No, we do not want the making of a gate, for
that would mean the gate was always in the making and never
made. What we want is a gate made.
Third scholar: No, we do not want a gate made, for a gate
made must already be in existence somewhere else, and so we
should be taking somebody else's gate.
The King told them to go away and make up their minds. When
they returned in three days' time they had agreed on a
formula:
We ask permission that the making of a gate be made.
[Ostium fieri in facto esse].
Permission was granted."
------------------------------
Date: 19 July 1984 09:52-EDT
From: Arline H. Benford <AH @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Seminar - Second-Order Polymorphic Lambda Calculus
[Forwarded from the MIT bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
DATE: Tuesday, July 24, 1984
TIME: 1:45PM Refreshments
2:00PM Lecture
PLACE: NE43-512A
"THE SEMANTICS OF EXPLICIT POLYMORPHISM"
Kim B. Bruce
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Williams College
Williamstown, MA
Facilities for defining GENERIC or POLYMORPHIC routines, i.e., routines which
can have several typed instantiations, are now available in programming
languages such as Ada, Clu, and ML. We consider a typed calculus called
second-order polymorphic lambda calculus as a theoretical model for
EXPLICIT polymorphism -- where types appear as parameters of procedures as in
Ada and Clu (and as opposed to ML).
The proof theory of the second-order polymorphic lambda calculus was reasonably
well understood before there was much concern over its semantics (as is common
in the development of logical systems). The problem with assigning semantics
to the system is that terms may be applicable to their own types, which
involves a classical type violation. Reynolds attempted to construct a kind of
set-theoretic model for the language but ran into difficulties, and
subsequently demonstrated that no such model is possible. Donahue
attempted to construct a model using complete lattices and also failed.
Finally, McCracken and also Haynes successfully constructed models usng Scott
domains.
We describe in this talk a general notion of model for the second-order lambda
calculus. In support of our definitions we establish soundness and
completeness results relative to our semantics for the previously given axiom
system for the calculus. We also review related results and open problems.
HOST: Professor Albert R. Meyer
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 84 10:33:05 PDT
From: Guy M. Lohman <lohman%ibm-sj.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Reply-to: IBM-SJ Calendar <CALENDAR.IBM-SJ@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: Seminar - Probabilistic Analysis of Hierarchical Planning Problems
[Forwarded from the SRI bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
IBM San Jose Research Lab
5600 Cottle Road
San Jose, CA 95193
Wed., July 25 Computer Science Seminar
10:30 A.M. PROBABILISTIC ANALYSIS OF HIERARCHICAL PLANNING PROBLEMS
Aud. A Multi-level decision problems can often be modeled as
multi-stage stochastic programs. Hierarchical
planning systems designed for the solution of such
problems can then be viewed as stochastic programming
heuristics, and they can be subjected to the same
kind of analytical performance analysis that has
become customary in the area of combinatorial
optimization. We will give a general formulation of
these multi-stage stochastic programs and sketch a
framework for the design and analysis of heuristics
for their solution. The various ways to measure the
performance of such heuristics are reviewed, and some
relations between these measures are derived. Our
concepts are illustrated on a simple two-level
planning problem of a general nature and on a more
complicated two-level scheduling problem. This talk
is based on joint work with Alexander Rinnooy Kan and
Leen Stougie.
J. K. Leustra, Department of Computer Science,
University of California at Berkeley
Host: B. Simons
[...]
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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