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AIList Digest Volume 2 Issue 181
AIList Digest Saturday, 22 Dec 1984 Volume 2 : Issue 181
Today's Topics:
Math - Fermat's Last Theorem,
AI Tools - XLISP Interpreter & PROLOG & Expert System Tools,
Reports - SEAI Survey & Winograd on Semantics & Barwise on Logic,
Opinion - Skeptical Viewpoints,
Seminar - REVE: Solving Problems in Equational Theories (CSLI),
Course - Reasoning About Knowledge (SU)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 19 December 1984 1724-EST
From: Oswald Wyler@CMU-CS-A
Subject: Fermat's last Theorem
[Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
The first two sentences of an AMS abstract, 816-11-188, by Chen Wenjen,
read: The missing proof of Fermat's Last Theorem has been rediscovered.
The proof is elementary, zigzag, and truly wonderful as claimed by
Fermat nearly three and a half centuries ago.
Anyone know more about this?
------------------------------
Date: 19 Dec 1984 2001 PST
From: Larry Carroll <LARRY@JPL-VLSI.ARPA>
Reply-to: LARRY@JPL-VLSI.ARPA
Subject: Xlisp interpreter
Some time back David Betz announced he'd placed into the public domain
a Lisp interpreter with object-oriented extensions. Where is it stored
in FTPable form? Thanks.
Larry @ jpl-vlsi
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 84 00:06 MST
From: May%pco@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Re Issue 179, "micro-PROLOG info request"
Dr. George Luger, at the University of New Mexico, is developing a
Prolog that runs on PC-compatibles. It is currently in beta-test. (no
phone # available)
Also, the University of York, Heslington, York, YO1 5DD, England, has a
C&M Prolog that is written in standard Pascal. It requires three
file-system-specific procedures to be written for the host, which is
usually a minor job. The original version compiled cleanly under
Turbo-Pascal but we haven't yet checked it out for correct execution.
The same source compiled and executed cleanly on a mainframe host.
Contact Mrs. Jenny Turner, Secretary, Software Technology Centre,
telephone 0904 59861, or at the above address. (A few months ago, they
were charging 200 Pounds.)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 84 15:20:44 pst
From: weeks%ucbpopuli.CC@Berkeley (Harry Weeks)
Subject: Prolog on Micros.
There is an article in the December 1984 issue of Byte on
`micro-Prolog', which runs on CP/M and MS-DOS machines
(including the IBM PC). It is distributed in the United
States by Programming Logic Systems, 31 Crescent Drive,
Milford, Connecticutt 06460, 203 877 7988.
-- Harry
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 84 07:07:46 pst
From: Paul A. Ehrler <ehrler%cod@Nosc>
Subject: Expert System Tools
Are there any head-to-head comparisons of the so-called 'fifth
generation' expert system building tools like KEE, ART, S1, SRL, and
LOOPS? I've heard that ART has been improved since the AAAI conference.
The demo I saw then was not very informative, since they didn't have an
extra Symbolics to put in their hotel suite for serious shoppers; I was
more favorably impressed by KEE at the time. As for the others, first
impressions are that S1 was out of date, SRL was underdeveloped and
overpriced ($70K), and LOOPS was unsupported, but had lots of
potential. Anything more concrete (performance, ease of use,
robustness, support provided, etc) would be welcome, especially direct
comparisons. If I missed any of importance (not of the EMYCIN
generation, please), that would also be useful to know.
Speaking of prices, are they serious about the exorbitant prices for
secondary copies of the software? I can understand, given the tradition
of whatever the market will bear, that something extra must be charged
for more application, but we have a LAN of five 1108's all on the same
project, and I can't see charging more for the secondary copies than the
machines cost - that's a big reason we're using LOOPS now. Maybe
they're thinking like the micro houses, assuming that since most of
their customers are going to cheat, they'll use the honest suckers to
subsidize.
------------------------------
Date: Thursday, 20 December 1984 01:26:44 EST
From: Duvvuru.Sriram@cmu-ri-cive.arpa
Subject: SEAI Publications
Another report by SEAI titled "Artificial Intelligence: A New Tool for
Industry and Business" discusses a number of products in the market. The
utility of this book, which costs $485, is summarized by Price (see SIGART
Newsletter, Oct. 1984) as "it is expensive but it would cost more to
assemble the same information. It is not directed towards researchers but
managers who want to determine how AI can be effectively used in their
business". I wonder if there is a significant difference in content
between this one and the ones mentioned by Ken Laws!
Sriram
------------------------------
Date: Wed 19 Dec 84 18:32:28-PST
From: Dikran Karagueuzian <DIKRAN@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Reports - Winograd & Barwise
[Forwarded from the CSLI Newsletter by Laws@SRI-AI.]
CSLI REPORTS
``Moving the Semantic Fulcrum'' by Terry Winograd (Report No. CSLI--84-17)
has just been published. Report No. CSLI--84-2, ``The Situation in
Logic--I'' by Jon Barwise, which has been out of print, is now available.
To obtain a copy of these reports write to Dikran Karagueuzian, CSLI,
Ventura Hall, Stanford 94305 or send net mail to Dikran at SU-CSLI.
------------------------------
Date: 18 Dec 84 13:03:55 CST (Tue)
From: ihnp4!utzoo!henry@Berkeley
Subject: Re: Personal Assistants -- a skeptical viewpoint
[Forwarded from the Human-Nets Digest by Laws@SRI-AI.]
> Dear sir--oh, my very dear sir. Is NOTHING going to cheer you
> up? Can the micro revolution do nothing to help you?
Nope, I'd rather be grumpy and play Devil's Advocate. Bah. Humbug.
(Who is that odd fellow with the chains coming through my wall...?)
> For me, I keep remembering what a joy Electric Pencil was after
> typing millions of words on a Selectric; and while nothing that
> has come after Pencil has been the quantum step up that Pencil
> was in 1977, there has been steady improvement. Computers make
> my life simpler. (Well, actually more complex; but I get more
> done, and spend more of my time doing that which I LIKE
> doing...)
I have similar memories of encountering computerized text editing for
the first time, back in 1972. I've never written anything substantial
on a typewriter since, and have no wish to. I do appreciate the vast
improvement computers have brought, and the continuing improvements in
the situation.
What I do dislike is sales hype, or the equivalent, which claims that
innovation X is going to bring about Nirvana here on Earth in just a
few years. I.e., Real Soon Now. (Yes, I read and enjoy your column
in Byte.) In particular, the next time somebody tells me that applied
AI and/or the Fifth Generation is going to solve all my problems, I
think I'm gonna throw up. The AI folks are notorious for exuberant
promises followed by failure and disillusionment. I would have
thought they, of all people, would be a bit more cautious about
predicting the Millenium yet again. Nope, same old snake oil...
What I should have made clearer, in my earlier note, was that I do
expect some very interesting by-products from the inevitable failures.
I have no quarrel with anyone who merely predicts significant advances
and the appearance of useful new tools. This cloud is indeed likely
to have a silver lining, even though it's not going to be solid
platinum as its proponents claim.
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
------------------------------
Date: 20 December 1984 00:46-EST
From: Jerry E. Pournelle <POURNE @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Personal Assistants -- a skeptical viewpoint
[Forwarded from the Human-Nets Digest by Laws@SRI-AI.]
Ah well, I suppose I must agree regarding the hype.
As to AI: there is a famous story.
John McCarthy some years ago is said to have bought a Heathkit
television for the Stanford AI lab. When it arrived a student
eagerly fell upon it, but was restrained.
"We will construct a robot to build the kit," McCarthy
is said to have said.
Last I heard the box was unopened.
The story is probably apocryphal, but I do recall
the Great Foreign Language Translation Revolution predicted in
the 60's...
------------------------------
Date: Wed 19 Dec 84 18:32:28-PST
From: Dikran Karagueuzian <DIKRAN@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
Subject: Seminar - REVE: Solving Problems in Equational Theories
(CSLI)
[Forwarded from the CSLI Newsletter by Laws@SRI-AI.]
SUMMARY OF NOVEMBER 21 AREA C MEETING
Topic: REVE: A system for solving problems in equational theories,
based on term rewriting techniques
Speaker: Jean-Pierre Jouannaud, Professor at University of NANCY, FRANCE,
on leave at SRI-International and CSLI.
Equational Logic has been adopted by mathematicians for a very long
time and by computer scientists recently. Specifications in OBJ2, an
``object-oriented'' language designed and implemented at
SRI-International, uses equations to express relations between
objects. To express computations in this logic, equations are used
one way, e.g. as rules. To make proofs with rules in this logic
requires the so-called ``confluence'' property, which expresses that
the result of a computation is unique, no matter the order the rules
are applied. Proofs and computations are therefore integrated in a
very simple framework. When a set of rules does not have the
confluence property, it is augmented by new rules, using the so-called
Knuth and Bendix completion algorithm, until the property becomes
satisfied. This algorithm requires the set of rules to have the
termination property, i.e., an expression cannot be rewritten forever.
It has been proved that this algorithm allows one to perform as
inductive proof without invoking explicitly an induction principle and
to solve equations (unification) in the corresponding equational
theory as well.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Dec 84 16:15:12 PST
From: Joe Halpern <halpern%ibm-sj.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA>
Subject: Course on reasoning about knowledge
I'll be teaching a course on reasoning about knowledge at Stanford
in the winter quarter, along much the same lines as [my IBM-SJ] seminar.
He are the details:
Reasoning About Knowledge (CS400B)
Knowledge seems to play a crucial role in such diverse areas as
distributed systems, cryptography, and artificial intelligence.
We will examine various attempts at formalizing reasoning about
knowledge, and see to what extent they are applicable to the areas
mentioned above. In particular we will consider such problems as
resource-bounded reasoning, inconsistency of beliefs, belief revision,
and knowledge representation. There is no text from the course; we
will be concentrating on current research.
Officially the course meets on Tuesdays in the winter quarter,
from 2:45-5:00. I would be willing to consider moving that time
to another afternoon (although I suspect it might be hard to
reach agreement). It might be nice to push the meeting time forward
to 1:30-3:45, so those interested can attend the CS Colloquium.
I've enclosed a brief (tentative!) outline for the course. As of now,
the emphasis is on material I'm most familiar with (i.e., papers
I've written), but I would be interested in hearing suggestions
from participants in the course on other material to cover.
Auditors are welcome.
Week 1 and 2: Philosophical background and thorough introduction to
possible-worlds semantics for knowledge.
References: W. Lenzen, Recent work in epistemic logic, Acta
Philosophica Fennica, 1978.
J.Y. Halpern and Y.O. Moses, A guide to the modal logics
of knowledge and belief, to appear as an IBM RJ, 1985.
Week 3: The "knowledge structures" approach
References: R. Fagin, J.Y. Halpern, and M.Y. Vardi, A
model-theoretic analysis of knowledge, in "Proceedings
of the 25th Annual Conference of Foundations of
Computer Science", 1984, pp. 268-278
Week 4: Knowledge in distibuted systems
References: J.Y. Halpern and Y.O. Moses, Knowledge and common
knowledge in a distributed environment, in "Proceedings
of the 3rd ACM Conference on Principles of Distributed
Computing", 1984; IBM RJ 4421, 1984.
R. Strong and D. Dolev, Byzantine agreement, IBM RJ 3714,
1982.
Weeks 5 and 6: Resource-bounded and incomplete knowledge, relevance
logic, the "syntactic approach"
References: H.J. Levesque, A logic of implicit and explicit belief,
Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial
Intelligence, 1984, pp. 198-202.
K. Konolige, A deduction model of belief, Ph.D. Thesis,
Stanford University, 1984.
R. Fagin and J.Y. Halpern, Knowledge and awareness,
unpublished manuscript, 1985.
S. Shapiro and M. Wand, The relevance of relevance,
Indiana University Technical Report No. 46, 1976.
Weeks 7 and 8: Belief revision and non-monotonic reasoning
References: D. McDermott and J. Doyle, Non-monotonic logic I,
Artificial Intelligence 13, Vol. 1,2, 1980, pp. 41-72.
R. Reiter, A logic for default reasoning,
Artificial Intelligence 13, Vol. 1,2, 1980, pp. 81-132.
J. McCarthy, Circumscription - a form of non-monotonic
reasoning, Artificial Intelligence 13, Vol. 1,2, 1980,
pp. 27-39.
W.R. Stark, A logic of knowledge, Zeitschrift fur
Mathematische Logik und Grundalagen der Mathematik 27,
pp. 371-374, 1981.
D. McDermott, Non-monotonic logic II: non-monotonic modal
theories, Journal of the ACM, Vol. 29, No. 1, 1982,
pp. 35-57
R.C. Moore, Semantical considerations on non-monotonic
logic, SRI Technical Note 284, 1983.
H.J. Levesque, A formal treatment of incomplete knowledge
bases, Fairchild Technical Report No. 614, FLAIR Technical
Report No. 3, 1982.
K. Konolige, Circumscriptive ignorance, Proceedings of
the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1982,
pp. 202-204.
J.Y. Halpern and Y.O. Moses, Towards a theory of knowledge
and ignorance, Proceedings of Workshop on Non-monotonic
Reasoning, 1984; IBM RJ 4448, 1984.
R. Parikh, Monotonic and non-monotonic logics of
knowledge, unpublished manuscript, 1984.
Week 9: Knowledge bases
References: H.J. Levesque, A formal treatment of incomplete knowledge
bases, Fairchild Technical Report No. 614, FLAIR Technical
Report No. 3, 1982.
K. Konolige, A deduction model of belief, Ph.D. Thesis,
Stanford University, 1984.
Week 10: Knowledge and cryptography; puzzles
References: M.J. Merritt, Cryptographic protocols, Ph.D. Thesis,
Georgia Institute of Technology, 1983.
S. Goldwasser, S. Micali and C. Rackoff, Knowledge
complexity, unpublished manuscript, 1984.
X. Ma and W. Guo, W-JS: a modal logic about knowing,
Proceedings of the 8th International Joint Conference
on Artificial Intelligence, 1983.
D. Dolev, J.Y. Halpern and Y.O. Moses, Cheating spice
and other stories, unpublished manuscript, 1984.
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End of AIList Digest
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