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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 133
AIList Digest Monday, 8 Oct 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 133
Today's Topics:
Bindings - John Hosking Query,
Workstations - Electrical CAD/CAE & TI LISP Machine,
AI Tools - Graph Display,
Expert Systems - Liability,
Humor - Theorem Proving Contest,
Comments - Zadeh & Poker,
Seminar - First Order Logic Mechanization
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Saturday, 6-Oct-84 2:12:41-BST
From: O'KEEFE HPS (on ERCC DEC-10) <okeefe.r.a.%edxa@ucl-cs.arpa>
Subject: References wanted
Anyone know where I can find anything by John Hosking,
now of Auckland University New Zealand? Said to be in
expert systems/knowledge representation field.
------------------------------
Date: 3 Oct 84 17:08:44-PDT (Wed)
From: hplabs!intelca!qantel!dual!amd!turtlevax!ken @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Electrical CAE software/hardware
Article-I.D.: turtleva.541
We've been gathering information about CAD/CAE for electrical/computer
engineering and have been deluged with a foot's worth of literature.
No on makes the entire package of what we want, which includes
schematic entry, hierarchical simulation, timing verification, powerful
functional specification language, finite-state machine generator, PAL
primitives, PLA and PROM high-level language specification compiling
down to JEDEC format, driver for a Data I/O or more dependable PROM/PAL
programmer, transient and frequency analysis (SPICE works well here),
symbolic, analytical, and graphical mathematics, etc.
We've accepted the fact that we will need to get several packages of
software, but are prepared to buy no more than 1 extra piece of
hardware, if we can't get software to run on our VAX or Cadlinc
workstations.
Has anyone used any of the available products? Does anyone have any
recommendations?
Following is a list of suppliers of CAE tools of some sort, for which I
managed to get some literature, and is in no way guaranteed to be
complete:
Altera
Assisted Technology
Avera Corporation
Cad Internet, Inc.
Cadmatics
Cadnetix
Cadtec
CAE Systems
Calma
Chancellor Computer Corporation
Control Data
Daisy
Design Aids, Inc.
Futurenet
GenRad
HHB Softron
Inference Corp.
Intergraph
Interlaken Technology Corp.
Mentor
Metalogic, Inc.
Metheus
Mirashanta
Omnicad Corp.
Phoenix
Racal-Redac
Signal Technology, Inc.
Silvar-Lisco
Step Engineering
Symbolics
Teradyne
Valid
Vectron
Verstatec
Via Systems
VLSI Technology, Inc.
--
Ken Turkowski @ CADLINC, Palo Alto, CA
UUCP: {amd,decwrl,flairvax,nsc}!turtlevax!ken
ARPA: turtlevax!ken@DECWRL.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: Fri 5 Oct 84 16:23:15-PDT
From: Margaret Olender <MOLENDER@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: TI LISP MACHINE
[Forwarded from the SRI-AI bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
Texas Instruments invites ACM attendees (and AIC-ers) to see the new
TI LISP machine demo-ed at the
San Francisco Hilton
333 O'Farrel Street
Imperial Suite Room #1915
Monday, October 8, 1984
5:00pm - 8:00pm
Refreshments and hors d'oeuvers. Bring your ACM badge for admission.
...margaret
------------------------------
Date: Sat 6 Oct 84 23:56:50-PDT
From: Scott Meyers <MEYERS@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Wanted: info on printing directed graphs
I am faced with the need to come up with an algorithm for producing
hardcopy of a directed graph, i.e. printing such a graph on a lineprinter
or a V80 plotter. Rather than just plopping the nodes down helter-skelter,
I will have an entry node to the graph which I will place at the far left
of the plot, and then I will want to plot things so that the edges
generally point to the right. If anyone has solved this problem or can
give me pointers to places where it has been solved, or can offer any
other assistance, I would very much like to hear from you. Thanks.
Scott
[Scott could also use a routine printing graphs top to bottom if
that is available. -- KIL]
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 7 Oct 84 13:47:09 pdt
From: Howard Trickey <trickey@diablo>
Subject: printing graphs
[Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
I did a program that takes a graph description and produces a TeX input
file which in turn produces a reasonably nice looking graph on the
Dover (\special's are used to draw lines at arbitrary angles; I can
use Boise by specifying only rectilinear lines, but it doesn't look as
good). There's no way to use it as is for the output devices mentioned
in the previous message, but the algorithms I used may be of interest.
There can be different types of nodes, each drawn with a
user-specified TeX macro. The graph description says which nodes there
are and of what type, and what edges there are. Edges go to and from
symbolically specified points on nodes. The output looks best when
the graph is acyclic or nearly acyclic, since that's what my graphs
are so I didn't spend time on other cases.
The program isn't robust enough or easy enough to use for general use,
but I can point people to it. If you need the capability badly enough,
it's not too difficult to get used to. It's written in Franz Lisp.
Howard Trickey
------------------------------
Date: 3 Oct 84 12:46:11-PDT (Wed)
From: decvax!cwruecmp!atvax!ncoast!rich @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: AI decision systems - What are the risks for the vendor?
Article-I.D.: ncoast.386
The rapid advance of Artificial Intelligence Software has caused me to
wonder about some of the possible legal problems.
SITUATION: We are a software vendor that develops an AI software package.
this package has been tested and appears to be correct in design and
logic. Additionally, the package indicates several alternative
solutions as well as stating that there could be alternatives that
are overlooked.
What risk from a legal standpoint does the developer/vendor have to the
user IF they follow the recommendation of the package AND the decision
is proven to be incorrect several months later?
I would appreciate your opinions and shall post the compiled responses
to the net.
From: | the.world!ucbvax!decvax!cwruecmp!
Richard Garrett @ North Coast Xenix | {atvax!}ncoast!rich
10205 Edgewater Drive: Cleveland, OH |...................................
(216) 961-3397 \ 44102 | ncoast (216) 281-8006 (300 Baud)
------------------------------
Date: Sat 6 Oct 84 14:01:30-PDT
From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Liability
Just as damning as using an incompetent [software] advisor is
failing to use a competent one. If a doctor's error makes you a
cripple for life, and if he had available (and perhaps even used)
an expert system counceling a better course of treatment, is he
not guilty of malpractice? Does the doctor incur a different
liability than if he had used/not used a human consultant?
The human consultant would normally bear part of the liability.
Since you can't sue an expert system, do you sue the company
that sold it? The programmer? The theoretician who developed
the algorithm? I'm sure there are abundant legal precedents for
all of the above.
For anyone with the answers to the above, here's an even more
difficult problem. Systems for monitoring and interpreting
electrocardiograms are commonly adjusted at the "factory" to
match the diagnostic style of the purchasing physician. Suppose
that the doctor requests that this be done, or even does it
himself. Suppose further that he is incompetent at this type
of diagnosis (after all, he's buying a system to do it for him),
and that customization to match his preferences can be shown to
degrade the performance of the software. Is he liable for operating
the system at less than full capability? I assume so. Is the
manufacturer liable for making the adjustment, or for providing
him the means of doing it himself? I would assume that also.
What are the relative liabilities for all parties?
-- Ken Laws
------------------------------
Date: 4 Oct 1984 09:51 EDT (Thu)
From: Walter Hamscher <WALTER%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Subject: GSL sponsored Theorem Proving Contest
[Forwarded from the MIT bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
DATE: Friday, 5 October, 12 noon
PLACE: 3rd Floor Playroom
HOST: Reid Simmons
REAGAN vs. MONDALE THEOREM PROVING CONTEST
To help the scientific community better assess this year's
presidential candidates, GSL (in conjunction with the Laboratory
for Computer Research and Analysis of Politics) proudly presents
the first Presidential Theorem Proving Contest. The candidates
will have 10 minutes to prepare their proofs, 10 minutes to
present, and then 5 minutes to criticise their opponents' proofs.
A pseudorandom number generator will be used to determine the
order of presentation. The candidates will be asked to
prove the following theorem:
* Let (a + a + a ...) be a conditionally convergent series.
1 2 3
Show by construction that there exists a rearrangement of
the a such that
i
lim (a + ... a ) = 0.
n -> inf 1 n
Note:
To increase public interest in this contest, the theorem
will actually be phrased in the following way:
Let (deficit + deficit + deficit ...) be a
1980 1981 1982
series with both positive and negative terms.
Rearrange the terms so that:
lim (deficit + ... deficit ) = $ 0.00
year -> inf 1980 year
------------------------------
Date: 2 Oct 84 21:50:35-PDT (Tue)
From: hplabs!ames!jaw @ Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: Humor & Seminar - Slimy Logic
Article-I.D.: ames.548
This B-Board article [on slimy logic] is a master parody, right down
to the "so to speak" mannerism. Thanks for the entertainment!
I took a couple of courses from Professor Zadeh at Berkeley in the 70s,
not just in Fuzzy Logic, but also formal languages, where we all struggled
with LALR(1) lookahead sets. The fuzzy controversy was raging then, with
Prof. William Kahan, numerical analyst, being Zadeh's arch-enemy. Kahan was a
natural devil's advocate, himself none too popular for raving on, in courses
on data structures, a bit muchly about the way CDC 6400 Fortrash treated
roundoff of the 60th bit. Apparently, there's some bad blood over the size
of Zadeh's grants (NSF?) for his fuzzy baby. They both have had tenure for
years, so maybe a pie-throwing contest would be appropriate.
Anyway, looks like the fuzzy stuff is now making the rounds at MIT.
Zadeh, who ironically wrote the book on linear systems (circa 1948), at
least got the linguistics department hopping with the fuzzies, influencing
the Lakoffs (George, mainly) to trade in their equally ad hoc transformational
grammars for fuzzy logic. Kinda soured me on natural language theory, too.
I mean, is there life after YACC?
Old Lotfi has left an interesting legacy via his children. Zadeh's
daughter, I understand is a brilliant lawyer. One son, after getting his
statistics Ph.D. at 20 or so, claims to have draw poker figured out.
Bluffing is dealt with by simple probability theory. As I remember,
"Winning Poker Systems" is one of those "just-memorize-the-equivalent-of-
ten-phone-numbers-for-instant-riches" books. He worked his way through school
with funds won in Emeryville poker parlors. Not too shabby, but not too
fuzzy, either ...
-- James A. Woods {ihnp4,hplabs,philabs}!ames!jaw (jaw@riacs.ARPA)
[Dr. Zadeh also invented the Z-transform used in digital signal processing
and control theory. -- KIL]
------------------------------
Date: 5 Oct 84 18:31:33-PDT (Fri)
From: hplabs!hao!seismo!rochester!rocksanne!sunybcs!gloria!colonel @
Ucb-Vax.arpa
Subject: Re: fuzzy poker
Article-I.D.: gloria.578
One son, after getting his statistics Ph.D. at 20 or so, claims to
have draw poker figured out. ...
When I was working with the SUNY-Buffalo POKER GROUP, we managed to
verify some of N. Zadeh's tables with hard statistics. Anybody who's
interested can find some of our results in Bramer's anthology _Computer
Game-Playing: Theory and Practice_ (1983).
--
Col. G. L. Sicherman
...seismo!rochester!rocksanne!rocksvax!sunybcs!gloria!colonel
------------------------------
Date: 05 Oct 84 1318 PDT
From: Carolyn Talcott <CLT@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Continuing Seminar - FOL & First Order Logic Mechanization
[Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
Seminar on FOL: a mechanized interpretation of logic
presented by Richard Weyhrauch
Time: 4:15 to 6:00
Date: Alternate Tuesdays begining October 9
Place: Room 252 Margret Jacks Hall
The topic of this seminar is a description of FOL, a collection of structures
that can be used to provide a mechanized interpretation of logic. We will
present specific examples of interest for logic, philosophy and artificial
intelligence to illustrate how the FOL structures give formal solutions,
or at least shed light on, some classical problems. We will also describe
the details of FOL, a computer program for constructing these structures.
This provides a link between logic and AI.
Mechanization is an alternative foundation to both constructive and
classical logic. I have always found constructive foundations
unconvincing. Taken by itself, it fails to explain how we can understand
classical semantics well enough to make the distinction. Even more -- a
philosophically satisfactory account of reasoning must explain why in the
comparatively well behaved case of mathematical foundations the classical
arguments carry conviction for practising mathematicians.
On the other hand the use of set theoretic semantics also seems to require
infinite structures to understand elementary arguments. This conflicts
with the simple observation that people understand these arguments and they
are built from only a finite amount of matter.
Mechanization provides a semantics that is both finitist and at the same
time allows the use of classical reasoning.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 84 13:56:04 pdt
From: Vaughan Pratt <pratt@Navajo>
Subject: FOL seminar
[Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
On the other hand the use of set theoretic semantics also seems to
require infinite structures to understand elementary arguments. This
conflicts with the simple observation that people understand these
arguments ...
In my day it was not uncommon for students to reason about all the reals in a
finite amount of time - in fact it was even required for exams, where you only
had three hours. Whatever has modern mathematics come to?
... and they [people] are built from only a finite amount of matter.
By weight and volume, yes, but with elementary particles breeding like
rabbits one sometimes wonders about parts count. Now here's a problem
spanning particle physics and number theory: if there exists such a thing
as an elementary particle, and if there are a fixed finite number of them in an
uncharged hydrogen atom at absolute zero, is that number prime?
-v
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End of AIList Digest
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