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AIList Digest Volume 4 Issue 132
AIList Digest Wednesday, 28 May 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 132
Today's Topics:
Queries - AI Survey & AI Applications in Simulation & Neural Networks,
Brain Theory - Chaotic Neural Networks,
Logic Programming - Functional Programming & Prolog Variables,
AI Tools - VAX LISP on VMS and ULTRIX,
Binding - Sussex Cognitive Studies,
Literature - Object-Oriented Programming Book,
Psychology - Doing AI Backwards
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Date: 23 May 86 15:32:39 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!reading!onion.cs.reading.AC.UK!scm@SEISMO (Stephen Marsh)
Subject: A survey on AI
I am currently doing a survey on the attitudes and
beliefs of people working in the field of AI. It would be
very much appreciated if you could take the time to save this
notice, edit in your answers and post me back your reply.
If there are any interesting results, I'll send them
to the net sometime in the future.
-Thanks
1. Do you, or have you, undertaken any research in the field
of Artificial Intelligence?.....
2. In which country was the research undertaken?.....
3. For how long did your research continue?.....
4. If you are not currently working in the field of AI, when
was the period of your research?.....
5. What area of research did your work cover? (eg IKBS).....
6. Were you satisfied with the results of your research?....
7. Did your research make you feel that in the long term AI was
not going to succeed in creating an intelligent machine?..
8. Do you find the progress of research in AI in the last
5 years?......
10 years?.....
25 years?.....
acceptable?
9. What do you consider the main objectives of AI?.....
10. Excluding financial pressures, do you consider that AI
researchers should reconsider the direction of their
work?.....
11. Do you consider that the current areas of research will
eventually result in an 'intelligent' machine?.....
12. Do you consider that the current paradigm of humans producing
cleverly-written computer programs can ever fulfil the
initial aim of AI of producing an intelligent machine in the
accepted sense of the word 'intelligent'?.....
13. Should a totally new approach to producing an intelligent
machine be found, not based simply on sets of sophisticated
programming techniques?.....
scm@onion.cs.reading.ac.uk
Steve Marsh
Dept of Computer Science,
PO Box 220,
University of Reading,
Whiteknights,
READING ,UK.
------------------------------
Date: 23 May 86 05:12:27 GMT
From: shadow.Berkeley.EDU!omid@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Omid Razavi)
Subject: AI applications in simulation
I am interested in the applications of AI in simulation.
Specially, I'd like to know if there are expert system environments
today that would support simulation modeling and provide features
similar to those of standard simulation languages such as GASP IV
and SIMSCRIPT.
Also, references to technical articles related to this subject is
greatly appreciated.
Omid Razavi
omid@shadow.berkeley.edu
------------------------------
Date: 17 May 86 14:39:34 GMT
From: hplabs!qantel!lll-lcc!lll-crg!seismo!mcvax!ukc!warwick!gordon@ucbvax
.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: neural networks
This may be a bit of a tangent, but I feel it might have some impact on
the current discussion.
The mathematical theory of chaotic systems is currently an active area of
research. The main observation is that models of even very simple systems
become chaotic in a very small space of time.
The human brain is far from being a simple system, yet the transition to
chaos rarely occurs. There must be a self-correcting element within the
system itself, as it is often perturbed by myriad external stimuli.
Is the positive feedback mentioned in article <837@mhuxt.UUCP> thought to
be similar to the self-correcting mechanisms in the brain?
Gordon Joly -- {seismo,ucbvax,decvax}!mcvax!ukc!warwick!gordon
------------------------------
Date: 23 May 86 14:51:53 GMT
From: hplabs!hplabsc!kempf@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Jim Kempf)
Subject: Re: neural networks
> The mathematical theory of chaotic systems ...
> Gordon Joly -- {seismo,ucbvax,decvax}!mcvax!ukc!warwick!gordon
Not having seen <837@mhuxt.UUCP>, I can't comment on the question.
However, I do have some thoughts on the relation between chaos
in dynamical systems and the brain. The "chaotic" dynamical behavior
seen in many simple dynamical systems models is often restricted
to a small region of the state space. By a kind of renormalization
procedure, this small region might be topologically shrunk, so that,
from a more macroscopic view, the chaotic region actually looks
more like a point attractor. Another possibility is that complex
systems like the brain are able to perform a kind of ensemble
averaging to filter out chaos. Sorry if this sounds like speculation.
Jim Kempf kempf@hplabs
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 27 May 86 18:10:25 PDT
From: narain@rand-unix.ARPA
Subject: Functional and Logic Programming
Reply to Paul Fishwick regarding a language which incorporates both
functional and logic programming, (AIList digest v.4 #124.):
In a recent paper "A technique for doing lazy evaluation in logic" I describe
a method of defining functions in a logic-based language such as Prolog.
It is shown how we can keep Prolog fixed, but define functions in such
a way that their interpretation by Prolog directly yields lazy evaluation.
This contrasts with conventional approaches for doing lazy evaluation
which keep the programming style fixed but modify the underlying
interpreter.
More generally the technique can be viewed as a natural and efficient
method of combining functional and logic programming. The paper appeared
in 1985 IEEE Symposium on Logic Programming, and a substantially expanded
version of it is to appear in the Journal of Logic Programming.
Sanjai Narain
Rand Corp.
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 86 07:46:51 GMT
From: amdcad!lll-crg!booter@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Prolog and Thank you
WOW! I didn't realize so many folks out there have played with prolog.
I received all sorts of replies, most very useful in explaining the
instantiation of variables to values (I hope I worded it properly). PASCAL
doesn't prepare you for it and I write LISP code by the grace of God(it just
works, I dunno why!).
A major problem I had was in the idea of reconsulting a file. I just kept
loading copies of files in there and of course would get the same error
message as it seemed to be reading the first one over and over.
I have passed that phase now and am endeavoring to master the idea of using
the "cut". You'd all be proud of me, I wrote a very simple version of the
computer that talks back (called "doctor" or "eliza").
I still like LISP better, but at least I am no longer swearing at the terminal.
Thank you all very much
E
*****
------------------------------
Date: 27 May 86 15:48:00 EST
From: "LOGIC::ROBBINS" <robbins%logic.decnet@hudson.dec.com>
Reply-to: "LOGIC::ROBBINS" <robbins%logic.decnet@hudson.dec.com>
Subject: VAX LISP is supported on both VMS and ULTRIX
VAX LISP V2.0 (DEC's current release of Common Lisp) is supported on
VMS and ULTRIX. I hope that this clears up any confusion resulting from
two incorrect messages that appeared in this list recently concerning
VAX LISP.
Rich Robbins
Digital Equipment Corporation
77 Reed Rd. HL02-3/E09
Hudson, MA 01749
Arpanet: Robbins@Hudson.Dec.Com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 22 May 86 08:39:30 gmt
From: Aaron Sloman <aarons%cvaxa.sussex.ac.uk@Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>
Subject: Sussex Cognitive Studies mail address
This is to confirm that the Sussex Cognitive Studies Netmail address has
finally(?) settled down to UK.AC.SUSSEX.CVAXA.
Arpanet users can try:
aarons@cvaxa.sussex.ac.uk (UK uses the reverse of ARPA order)
or, if that doesn't work:
aarons%uk.ac.sussex.cvaxa@ucl-cs
or
aarons%uk.ac.sussex.cvaxa@cs.ucl.uk.ac
or via UUCP: ...mcvax!ukc!cvaxa!aarons
Other users at this address include Chris Mellish (chrism),
Margaret Boden(maggieb), Ben du Boulay (bend), Jim Hunter (jimh),
Gerald Gazdar(geraldg), John Gibson (johng), David Hogg (daveh),
and the new POPLOG Project manager Alan Johnson (alanj).
Aaron Sloman
------------------------------
Date: Tue 13 May 86 18:37:50-PDT
From: Doug Bryan <Bryan@SU-SIERRA.ARPA>
Subject: object-oriented programming books
[Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
Brad Cox's book "Object-Oriented Programming: An Evolutionary Approach"
is now out. The book is published by Addison Wesley.
doug
------------------------------
Date: 18 May 86 05:39:39 GMT
From: ernie.Berkeley.EDU!tedrick@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Tom Tedrick)
Subject: Doing AI backwards (from machine to man)
More on Barry Kort's "Problem of the right-hand tail"
(ie social persecution of those with high intelligence).
Here is the way I look at the problem.
In order to function in society, it is necessary for most individuals
to operate in a more or less routine manner, performing certain acts
in a repetitive manner.
I have been trying to work backwards from models of computation,
abstracting certain principles and results in order to obtain
models with a wider application, including social behavior.
This is somewhat the reverse direction from that taken by
those working in Artificial Intelligence, who study intelligent
behavior in order to find better ways for machines to function.
I am studying how machines function in order to find better
ways for humans to function.
Anyway, most people in society functioning more or less automatically,
they handle input in such a way that only information relevant to
their particular problems is assimilated. Input is interpreted
according to the pre-existing patterns in their minds. It is as
if it was formatted input in fortran, anything that doesn't
conform to certain patterns is interpreted nonsensically.
The people in the "right-hand tail", IQ distribution-wise,
are there primarily due to greater capacity for independent
thought, abstract thought, capacity to reason for themselves
(or so I claim).
Thus these individuals are more likely to have original ideas
which don't conform to the pre-existing patterns in the minds
of the more average individuals. The average individual will
become disturbed when presented with information which he
cannot fit into his particular format. And with good reason,
since his role is to function as an automaton, more or less,
he would be less efficient if he spent time processing information
unrelated to his tasks.
So by presenting original information to the average individuals
in society, the "rightie" is likely to be attacked for disturbing
the status quo.
To use the machine analogy, the "righties" are more like programmers,
who alter the existing software, where the "non-righties" are like
machines which execute the instructions they already have in storage.
The analogy can be pushed in various ways. We can think of each
individual as being both programmer and machine, the faculty of
independent judgement and the self being the programmer or system
analyst, while the brain is the computing agent to be programmed.
The individual is constantly debugging and rewriting the code for
his brain, by the choices he makes which become habits, and so on.
Also, in interactive protocols where various individuals exchange
information, each is tampering with the software of the other.
I currently have been working out a strategy for dealing with
those I live with who talk too much. It is like having a machine
which keeps spewing out garbage every time you give it some input.
My current strategy is to carry a little card saying "I am observing
silence. I will answer questions in writing." This seems to work
very well, it is as if this form of input goes through another
channel which does not stimulate so much garbage in response.
Or its like saying "the network is down today, so sorry."
One last tangent. Note that in studying models of computation
one of the primary costs is the cost of memory. We can turn
this observation to good use in studying human behavior. For
example, suppose your wife asks you to pick up some milk at
the store after work. This seems a reasonable enough request,
on the surface. But if you think of the cost in terms of memory,
suppose short term memory is extremely limited and you have to
keep the above request stored in short term memory all day.
In effect you are reducing your efficiency in all the tasks
you perform all day long, since you have less free space in
your short term memory. Thus we see again how women have a
brilliant gift for asking seemingly innocent favors which
are really enormously costly. The subtle nature of the problem
makes it difficult to pin down the real poison in their approach.
[Anything held in short-term memory for five seconds automatically
enters long-term memory as well. If the man chooses to keep
refreshing it in STM, perhaps due to poor LTM retrieval strategies,
he needs to take a course in memory techniques -- it's hardly
the woman's fault. -- KIL]
You can use various strategies in order to deal with this problem.
One is to use some external form of storage (like writing it down
in a datebook), and having a daemon which periodically wakes up
and tells you to look in your external storage to see if anything
important is there. Of course this also has its costs.
By virtue of the relative newness of computer science, I think
there will be opportunities for applying the lessons we have
learned about machine behavior to other fields for some time to come.
(Since it is only recently that the need for rigorous treatment
of models of computation has induced us to really make some
progress in understanding these things.)
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End of AIList Digest
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