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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 135
AIList Digest Wednesday, 10 Oct 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 135
Today's Topics:
Expert Systems - NL Interfaces & Training Versions,
AI Reports - Request for Sources & Computer Decisions Article,
News - TI Lisp Machines & MCC,
AI Tools - Printing Directed Graphs,
Law - Liability for Expert Systems
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Date: 7 Oct 84 22:43:39-PDT (Sun)
From: hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrba!cepu!ucsbcsl!discolo @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Writing natural language/expert systems software.
Article-I.D.: ucsbcsl.172
I will be writing an simple expert system in the near future and was
wondering the advantages and disadvantages of writing something like
that in Prolog or Lisp. I seem to prefer Prolog, even though I don't
know either one very well yet. Are there any other languages out there
which are available under 4.2BSD for this purpose?
I would appreciate replies via mail. Thanks.
uucp: ucbvax!ucsbcsl!discolo
arpa: ucsbcsl!discolo@berkeley
csnet: discolo@ucsb
USMail: U.C. Santa Barbara
Department of Computer Science
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
GTE: (805) 961-4178
------------------------------
Date: 9 Oct 84 3:42:10-PDT (Tue)
From: hplabs!kaist!kiet!sypark @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Natural Language Processing Systems
Article-I.D.: kiet.232
Please send me the informations about natural language processing
systems which is machine translator or i/o interface for expert systems.
What I want is as following.
1. Overview of the system
2. Source is available ?
3. How much price ?
------------------------------
Date: 9 Oct 84 09:14 PDT
From: Feuerman.pasa@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: Training version of Expert System Tools
John Nagle brings up a good idea when talking about M.1. One major
problem in trying to investigate various Expert System Building Tools is
that they are very expensive just to buy to find out whether they
actually lend themselves well to solving a problem. One never really
can find out what it is like to use a system from a canned demo or user
guides. The idea of having a training version (a stripped down version
that doesn't allow full-sized applications) could give someone enough
experience with the system to allow them to know what sorts of
application a tool is good for. (Undoubtedly this would be viewed as a
bad marketing ploy; why would anyone want to come up with a cheap system
that would probably only keep someone from buying the full-fledged
expensive version.)
With that comment, I pessimistically ask: Does anyone know of any tool
out there that has such a stripped down training version?
--Ken <Feuerman.pasa@XEROX.ARPA>.
------------------------------
Date: 9 Oct 1984 16:32:15 EDT (Tuesday)
From: Charles Howell <m15434@mitre>
Subject: Various Technical Reports
I would like to know what Technical Reports are available from
some of the leading centers for research in AI and related fields
(how's that for a broad topic?). Any addresses of Publications
Offices (or whatever) that have a catalog and ordering / purchase
information will be appreciated. Implicit in this request is a
request for suggestions about what places are putting out
interesting reports; any and all suggestions will be cheerfully
accepted! I'll collect the answers and post them to the AIList if
there is much response.
Thanks,
Chuck Howell Howell at MITRE
------------------------------
Date: Tue 9 Oct 84 22:54:27-PDT
From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Computer Decisions Article
I just ran across an AI-in-business article in the August issue
of Computer Decisions. It features a roundtable of 14 consultants
and business bigwigs. Phone numbers and reader service numbers
are given for 18 AI vendors, and mention is made of an annual
AI report -- AI Trends '84, a description of the technologies and
profile of 50 key vendors by DM Data Inc., Scottsdale AZ, $195,
(602) 945-9620. The article includes advice on getting started
in AI (buy some Lisp machines, hire some hackers and AI experts,
and expect some failures), a short glossary (including Lisp,
a new language ...), and a short bibliography (including The
Mythical Man-Month).
-- Ken Laws
------------------------------
Date: Tue 9 Oct 84 15:19:30-CDT
From: Werner Uhrig <CMP.WERNER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: news from Austin: TI Explorer, MCC, and more
[ from the Austin American Statesman, p. D6 - Oct 9, 84 ]
TI Explorer finds new path
=================================
Texas Instruments in Austin has landed a major business prize: a
multi-million-dollar order for up to 400 of its highly sophisticated Explorer
symbolic processing systems from the Laboratory for Computer Science at MIT.
The computers will be bought over the next 2 years to establish the world's
largest network of LISP machines involved in computer research. TI officials
said the order is significant in view of the fact that only about 1,000 of
the specialized computers are in existence. TI plans to deliver 200 machines
in 1985 and 200 in 1986.
Boing joins MCC as 19th member of the consortium
====================================================
... paying a sign-up fee of $500,000. The cost for joining goes up
to $1-million on Jan 1.
There are 4 seperate research programs at MCC, with a combined annual
budget of more than $50 million. Boing reportedly has joined only one
program thus far, an effort to find new ways to connect complex computer
chips with the equipment the chips are supposed to control, but is
considering joining the other three as well.
MCC's managers are especially eager for Boing to join the artificial
intelligence program. They believe Boing's participation in that expensive
program would draw other aerospace companies to it, spreading out the expense
and making it a cheaper deal for everyone involved.
Boing is the fourth major aerospace defense contractor to become an MCC
member [following Rockwell, Lockheed, and Martin Marietta].
[ in other news: real estate prices and traffic jams are coming along nicely,
thank you. the city is being sued by the state for polluting the river and
trying to sue everyone connected with building 2 nuclear power reactors, which
are WAY overdue and WAY over-budget, and not close to being finished. Austin
is still trying to sell its 16% of the project, and given that nobody wants to
buy it, is close to pushing for abandoning the whole project. So you really
don't want to come here ..... (-: I don't make the news, only report it ]
------------------------------
Date: Tue 9 Oct 84 17:49:39-PDT
From: PENTLAND@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: TI's new Lisp Machines
News about TI's new Lisp Machines:
Timing figures, 1/60th of a second.
Both TI and 3600 were 1Mword memory, 300Mbyte disk
op TI 3600 comment
---------------------------------------------------------------
bitblt 270 441 shows basic memory cycle time
floating pt 23 17 //,* about the same, TI has 25 bit number
cons 25-40 17-40 depends somewhat on paging
paging 225-280 160-450 same transfer rate, seek time 50% more for TI
create flavor
instance 140 52 not fully microcoded yet
send msg 52 21 not fully microcoded yet
function call 31 16 not fully microcoded yet
32bit floating 33 17 includes consing in TI machine
It appears that by the April delivery date, the TI will be the equal of a
3600. It is already much more than an LMI, Cadr or LM2 (I ran these
benchmarks on an LM2, it was 1/2 to 1/5 the TI in all cases).
Ask for the benchmark programs if you are interested in details.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 84 16:58 CDT
From: Jerry Bakin <Bakin@HI-MULTICS.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Wanted: info on printing directed graphs
Some friends of mine came up with such a program. I have included its
first comment below.
It is written in Pascal, somewhere; I have a version I rewrote (i.e.,
force translated) into Multics PL/I. If you can use either one, let me
know. We do not support FTP, so if their is a wide demand for this, I
may ask someone else to take it off my hands.
There might be a small problem, they are currently selling a some of
their software, I have to find out if this is a portion of that software.
Even if it is, the following provided a source for more information.
(* TRPmod - A routine to print N-ary trees on any character printer. This
routine takes as input an arbitrary N-ary tree, some interface routines, and
assorted printer parameters and writes a pictorial representation of that
tree using an output routine provided in the call to treeprint. The tree is
nicely formatted and is divided into vertical stripes that can be taped
together after printing. Options exist to print the tree backwards or
upside down if desired.
The algorithm for treeprint originally appeared in "Pretty-Printing of
Trees", by Jean G. Vaucher, Software-Practice and Experience, Vol. 10,
pages 553-561 (1980). The algorithm used here has been modified to support
N-ary tree structures and to have more sophisticated printer format control.
Aside from a common method of constructing an ancillary data structure and
some variable names, they are now very dissimilar.
treeprint was written by Ned Freed, Kevin Carosso, and Douglas
Grover at Harvey Mudd College. (714) 621-3219 (ask for the Mathlib
Director)
------------------------------
Date: 6 Oct 84 8:51:42-PDT (Sat)
From: decvax!mcnc!idis!cadre!geb @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: re: liability for expert systems
Article-I.D.: cadre.57
This is a subject that we are quite interested in as we
develop medical expert systems. There has been no court
case nor precedent nor law covering placement of blame
in the cases of errors in expert systems. The natural
analogy would be medical textbooks. As far as I know,
no author of a textbook has been found liable for errors
that resulted in mistreatment of a patient. Therefore,
the logical liability should lie with the treating physician
to properly apply the knowledge.
Having said this, it is best to recognize that customs such
as this were developed in a much different society of 100
years ago. Now every possible person in a case is considered
fair game and undoubtedly until a court rules or legislation
is passed, you must consider yourself at risk if you distribute
an expert system. Unfortunately, there is no malpractice
insurance available for programmers and you will find a clause
in just about any other insurance that you might carry that
states that the insurance you have doesn't cover any lawsuits
stemming from the practice of your profession. Sorry.
------------------------------
Date: 10 October 1984 0854-PDT (Wednesday)
From: bannon@nprdc (Liam Bannon (UCSD Institute for Cognitive Science))
Reply-to: bannon <sdcsla!bannon@nprdc>
Subject: Liability and Responsibility wrt expert systems
I was interested in the messages raising the issue of where
responsibility lies if a person follows the advice of an AI system and
it turns out to be wrong, or where the person disregards the computer
system advice, but the system turns out to be right (AI Digest V2#133).
I am not a lawyer or AI system builder,
but I am concerned about some of the social dimensions
of computing, and have been concerned about how expert systems might
actually be used in the work environment. There have been few
full-length papers on this topic, to my knowledge. One that I have
found interesting is that by Mike Fitter and Max Sime "Creating
Responsive Computers: Responsibility and Shared Decision-Making" which
appeared in the collection H. Smith and T. Green (Eds.) Human
Interaction with Computers (Academic Press, 1980). They point out "the
possibility that a failure to use a computer might be judged negligent
if, for example, a physician neglected to ask a question, the answer
to which was crucial to a diagnosis, AND a computer system would have
asked the question." This hinges on a famous 1928 case in the US, called
the T.J. Hooper, where a tugboat owner was found negligent for not having
radio sets on them, thus not hearing radio reports of bad weather which
would have made them seek safety avoiding the loss of the barges
which the tugs had in tow - this despite the fact that at that
time radio was only used by one tugboat company!
This raises a host of interesting questions about how expert
systems could/should be used, especially in medicine, where the
risks/benefits are highest. Comments?
-liam bannon
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End of AIList Digest
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