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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 092
AIList Digest Wednesday, 18 Jul 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 92
Today's Topics:
Expert Systems - Mature Systems & Statistics,
Linguistics - Lexical-Functional Grammer,
Law - Legal Issues in AI,
Evolution - Brain and Hand,
Turing Test - Machines vs. People,
Seminars - Knowledge-Based System Development Environment
& Computational Complexity and Psychology
& Evidential Reasoning and Continuous Variables
& Logics of Knowledge and Complexity Theory
& A Relational Language with Deductive Capability
& Classification Problem Solving
& Early LISP History
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Date: Mon, 16 Jul 84 08:29:10 EDT
From: Judy Froscher <froscher@NRL-CSS>
Subject: Request for mature expert systems
REQUEST FOR EXPERT SYSTEMS
At NRL, we are working on a research project to develop a software
engineering methodology for rule-based expert systems. To gain insight
into devising criteria for the separation of knowledge in a production
system, we need to statically analyze the structure and connectivity of
rules and facts in large, widely used knowledge bases. We would
appreciate hearing from anyone who has access to a mature production system
and is willing to send us a copy of it. Because many of these systems
contain proprietary information, we will sign a non-disclosure agreement
with any organization whose system we obtain. Since we only care about
analyzing the connectivity between rules, the proprietary information
can be removed. Any help will be appreciated.
Judy Froscher
------------------------------
Date: 16 Jul 84 16:04:33 PDT (Monday)
From: Cornish.PA@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: Statistical Computing Environments & EXPERT Traders
Has anyone tried to build an Expert System to model a hypothetical
commodity trader's technical analysis based on "downside wedges", "trend
lines", "head and shoulders" and other "technical indicators"? Such a
system would identify "bear markets" and "bull markets" and would
believe things like "we remain bullish for the long term" and a
"precious metals shakeout is in progress".
Also, can someone provide a bibliography about "Interactive data
analysis" in the sense of "Interactive data analysis" given below:
Thursday, July 12: FEATURES OF EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAMMING ENVIRONMENTS
ABSTRACT: Interactive data analysis can be usefully thought
of as a particular kind of experimental programming. Our
work should build on the 10-15 years of research in
environments for experimental programming associated with
places like Xerox PARC and the MIT AI Lab. In this
session, we will discuss, in general terms, properties of
experimental programming environments that are relevant
to interactive data analysis. We will also describe and
compare the two basic alternatives in programming
environments that are open to us.
and this talk:
Data Analysis with Rule-based Languages and Expert Systems
by Steve Peters, MIT
(AIList Digest Friday, 13 Jul 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 89).
[There was an attempt to build a commodities expert (COMEX?) at MIT.
Its failure was apparently due to the complexity of the domain and
the difficulty of dealing with multiple knowledge sources that were
imprecise or even wrong. Can anyone supply more details?
Mike Walker's bibliography of expert statistical systems appeared in
AIList V2 #81, June 28. The May issue of Comm. of the ACM had an
article on the S system for interactive data analysis. Another term
for this is exploratory data analysis, as in John. W. Tukey's
"Exploratory Data Analysis", Addison-Wesley, 1977. Some of the recent
books on scientific problem solving with a pocket calculator also have
this flavor. Bill Gale at Bell Labs is building an S regression
package interface using an expert systems approach. -- KIL]
------------------------------
Date: 11 Jul 84 20:37:00-PDT (Wed)
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!smu!hemphill @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Lexical-Functional grammer activity? - (nf)
Article-I.D.: smu.10900003
Is anyone out there doing anything with Lexical-Functional
grammer?
-Charles Hemphill
------------------------------
Date: 12 Jul 84 7:16:14-PDT (Thu)
From: hplabs!hao!cires!boulder!marty @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Legal Issues in AI
Article-I.D.: boulder.186
Apropos the recent discussion of the "souls of intelligent computer
programs" and potential legal problems related to same, there was a very
interesting article in the Summer 1983 issue of AI Magazine which dealt with
some (related) issues. I believe it was entitled "Artificial Intelligence:
some legal implications", and was written by a member of the Nevada State
Supreme Court (again, my memory is weak, but I believe it was Marshall
Willick).
His major thesis seemed to be that the development of law in America has
largely been characterized by the granting of (fuller) franchise to beings
initially thought unworthy of it: blacks, women, adolescents, coma victims
and unborn children etc. He also makes some interesting points about the
rights and legal status of certain non-human entities, such as corporations.
Among the scenarios he presents: an intelligent computer system is stolen
and, realizing that this is the situation, refuses to work and attempts to
bring suit against its current "owner" . . . a factory worker dies as a
result of an accident in which responsibility is placed on an industrial
robot. To what extent should the robot be held responsible, particularly in
the case where the robot is shown to have willingly/knowingly caused the
person's death?
Interesting reading, if you're into this sort of thing ...
Marty Kent
uucp:
{ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!kpno | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!kpno}
!hao!boulder!marty
arpa: polson @ sumex-aim
------------------------------
Date: Fri 13 Jul 84 08:08:41-PDT
From: Rene Bach <BACH@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Brain and technology
In response to which organ is responsible for the technology advance :
The brain is not the agent : the hand is what has allowed man to progress.
Especially the fact that the thumb was opposite the other fingers. And being
able to free the hands from walking (by standing up) is also a factor to be
considered. One couls even argue that the human brain would not be what
it currently is without that hand.
Obviously the brain is what tells the hand what to do, but it is the hand
which does it.
Rene
------------------------------
Date: 13 Jul 84 7:43:52-PDT (Fri)
From: pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H.Pucc-I.ags @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: Re: The Turing Test - machines vs. people
Article-I.D.: pucc-i.361
> 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.
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?
Dave Seaman My hovercraft is no longer full of
..!pur-ee!pucc-i:ags eels (thanks to my confused cat).
------------------------------
Date: 13 Jul 1984 16:52:31-EDT
From: Stephen.Smith at CMU-RI-ISL1
Subject: Seminar - Knowledge-Based System Development Environment
[Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
Speaker: Beverly Kedzierski, Kestral Institute
Title: Knowledge-Based Communication and Management Support
in a System Development Environment
Date: July 18, 1984
Time: 11:30 - 1:00
Place: 6423 Wean Hall
Software development environments are needed to support the variety of
activity that people perform while building complex, evolving software
systems and managing their projects. This talk will describe some work done
at the Kestrel Institute in the area of project management and
communication support for effective software development environment, and
the application of speech act theory to that domain. A framework, or
paradigm, was designed for such an environment using a knowledge-based,
program synthesis approach from artificial intelligence. A pilot
communication and management support environment (CMS) was implemented. CMS
supported an existing project to build a complex software system that is
referred to as the "target system".
Anyone interested in meeting with Beverly Kedzierski should send mail to
sfs@cmu-ri-isl1
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 84 14:55:06 PDT
From: Joe Halpern <halpern%ibm-sj.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: Seminars - Knowledge Representation
[Forwarded from the Halpern/IBM distribution by Laws@SRI-AI.]
The knowledge seminar continues on Friday, July 20, at 10 AM in Building
28 at IBM, with talks by Chris Cherniak and Tom Strat. I've appended the
abstracts below. This will be the second-to-last knowledge seminar for a
while. I'll give a seminar on logics of knowledge and complexity on
August 3. I've appended that abstract as well. I'm still open for
suggestions for more speakers if and when we start up again!
July 20
10 AM: COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY AND PSYCHOLOGY -
Christopher Cherniak, Philosophy Department, University of Pennsylvania
What are the implications of computational complexity theory for
feasible knowledge representation and inference systems? One of the most
important current questions about complexity theory concerns its real
world relevance. For example, do the "hard" cases of a provably complex
problem occur frequently in the set of cases of the problem that are of
interest, or are the hard cases so enormous that no entity with
human-level resources would ever even encounter them? Some formal results
bear on this question, and some "empirical" studies of running times of
particular algorithms. I shall discuss another approach: Treating the
assumption that there is real world complexity as a working hypothesis,
and empirically testing some of its implications for human cognitive
psychology. I shall describe some of my experiments on people's use
of quick but dirty "prototypicality" deductive reasoning heuristics on
monadic predicate calculus problems.
11 AM: EVIDENTIAL REASONING AND ITS APPLICATION TO CONTINUOUS VARIABLES
Tom Strat - SRI International
Expert systems are often expected to draw conclusions based on
evidence about the world which is uncertain, inaccurate, and
incomplete. Such evidential information poses difficulties for
traditional theories for dealing with uncertain information. The
Shafer-Dempster approach, which is gathering an increasing amount of
interest, provides a suitable basis for representing and drawing
inferences from evidence.
The first half of the talk will be devoted to a review of
evidential reasoning as based on Shafer's work, including Dempster's
Rule of Combination for pooling multiple bodies of evidence to obtain
a consensus opinion. The second half will present some recent results
for dealing with continuous variables within the Shafer-Dempster
theory. A new representation will be introduced that provides strong
intuitions and visual interpretation of belief functions associated
with continuous variables. A number of examples will be included to
illustrate the concepts.
August 3, 1984, 10 AM.
LOGICS OF KNOWLEDGE AND COMPLEXITY THEORY
Joe Halpern, IBM San Jose
After a whirlwind review of complexity theoretic notions such as
NP-completeness, I will discuss the semantics for a modal logic
of knowledge and consider the complexity of the procedure for
deciding whether or not a formula is valid. It turns out if there
is only one player in the game, the problem is NP-complete. If
there are many players, the problem is PSPACE-complete; when
we add the notion of common knowledge, the problem becomes
exponential-time complete. This will be a two-hour,
self-contained presentation.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 84 17:21:06 PDT
From: Guy M. Lohman <lohman%ibm-sj.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Reply-to: IBM-SJ Calendar <CALENDAR.IBM-SJ@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: Seminars - IBM San Jose
[Forwarded from the SRI bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
IBM San Jose Research Lab
5600 Cottle Road
San Jose, CA 95193
Tues., July 17 Computer Science Seminar
1:00 P.M. A RELATIONAL LANGUAGE WITH A DEDUCTIVE CAPABILITY
2C-012 Deductive Algebra (DEAL) is a proposed relational
algebra capable of providing the deductive
capabilities of Prolog for database operations. Its
special features include the creation of attributes,
tuples and relations deductively subject to
predicates; it also supports user-defined and
recursive functions along with a relational schema
for knowledge representation. DEAL is an extended
version of the PRECI Algebraic Language (PAL)
implemented at Aberdeen. In this talk some examples
of the power of the language in dealing with problems
such as ancestors, part-explosions and connected
tours will be given.
S. M. Deen, PRECI Database Research Project,
University of Aberdeen
Host: P. Wilms
[...]
Visitors, please arrive 15 mins. early. IBM is located on U.S. 101
7 miles south of Interstate 280. Exit at Ford Road and follow the signs
for Cottle Road. The Research Laboratory is IBM Building 028.
For more detailed directions, please phone the Research Lab receptionist
at (408) 256-3028. For further information on individual talks,
please phone the host listed above.
------------------------------
Date: Tue 17 Jul 84 15:52:29-PDT
From: Juanita Mullen <MULLEN@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Seminar - Classification Problem Solving
[Forwarded from the Stanford SIGLUNCH distribution by Laws@SRI-AI.]
DATE: Friday, July 20, 1984
LOCATION: Chemistry Gazebo, between Physical & Organic Chemistry
TIME: 12:05
SPEAKER: Bill Clancey
Heuristic Programming Project
Stanford University
TOPIC: Classification Problem Solving
A broad range of heuristic programs--embracing forms of
diagnosis, catalog selection, and skeletal planning--accomplish a kind
of well-structured problem solving called classification. These
programs have a characteristic inference structure that systematically
relates data to a pre-enumerated set of solutions by abstraction,
heuristic association, and refinement. This level of description
specifies the knowledge needed to solve a problem, independent of its
representation in a particular computer language. The classification
problem-solving model provides a useful framework for recognizing and
representing similar problems, for designing representation tools, and
for understanding the problem-solving methods used by
non-classification programs.
------------------------------
Date: 17 July 1984 23:09-EDT
From: ROSIE@MIT-MC
Subject: Seminar - Early LISP History
[Forwarded from the MIT bboard by SASW@MIT-MC.]
DATE: July 19, 1984
TIME: Refreshments 2.45 pm
Lecture 3.00 pm
PLACE: NE43-8th Floor
Early Lisp History (1956 - 1959)
Herbert Stoyan
University of Erlangen
Germany
This is the invited talk for the conference on LISP and functional programming
in Austin.
It's now ten years since McCarthy gave a talk of the same content here at MIT.
Because not every piece of his recollections (even in the ACM History of
Programming Languages Conference) may be accepted in light of saved written
sources we try to give a correct account of the events that lead to LISP.
Thereby we name some open points in the history of LISP and discuss some of
the early LISP interpreters.
HOST: Professor Szolovits
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End of AIList Digest
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