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AIList Digest Volume 4 Issue 130
AIList Digest Tuesday, 27 May 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 130
Today's Topics:
Query - Lenat's AM,
Expert Systems - AM and CYRANO,
AI Tools - VAX/VMS LISP,
Games - Conway's LIFE & Int. Computer Chess Association Journal &
$1,000,000 Go Prize,
Humor - IT*S Grammar & Foo-Bar & Autonomous Systems
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 20 May 86 14:06:59 GMT
From: ihnp4!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!gatech!itm!danny@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Need Ref for "Automated Mathematician" by Doug Lenat
I read a small article in the "IEEE Expert" magazine about Doug
Lenat's Doctoral dissertation at Stanford. He developed a program
called "AM" (for Automated Mathematician) that produced "interesting"
formulas/relationships about numbers.
I believe that there is a service which will reprint a thesis paper
for a fee, and USnail it. I've no idea the name of the service.
In short can anyone provide pointers to the thesis, or possibly,
any books which cover this or similar programs? Specifically, I wish
to learn about programs that deal with meta-rules and meta-meta-rules,
rather than rules.
Was that as clear as MUD?
Danny
--
Daniel S. Cox
({siesmo!gatech|ihnp4!akgua}!itm!danny)
------------------------------
Date: 24 May 86 01:43:40 GMT
From: allegra!princeton!caip!seismo!mcvax!ukc!reading!brueer!holte@ucbvax
.berkeley.edu (Robert Holte)
Subject: Re: AI in IAsfm
> In the June 86 issue of IAsfm ,there's a fascinating article on AI and
> common sense. In this article, the author mentions a program called
> Eurisko, ...
> How can I find out more about it?
>
> Steven Grady
Douglas Lenat has written and exercised two heuristic "discovery" programs,
AM and EURISKO.
His initial exploration of the problem of heuristic (mechanical)
discovery constituted his Ph.D. research and culminated in the somewhat
controversial program, AM.
After his thesis, Lenat analyzed the shortcomings and strengths
(or "sources of power" as he came to call them) of AM, and from
this analysis EURISKO was conceived.
Unfortunatley, since Lenat's move from Stanford to MCC (Austin) a year
or two ago, he has ceased working with EURISKO.
I am aware of one or two isolated, low-profile projects to build
EURISKO-like systems. Most notable is the work of Ken Haase at MIT
on a system called CYRANO -- but I don't think any of Haase's work
has yet been published.
-- Rob Holte
UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!brueer!holte
ARPANET, CSNET, JANET: holte@ee.brunel.ac.uk
Dept. of Electrical Engineering
Brunel University
England UB8 3PH
EURISKO References:
(Lenat is the sole or first author in all cases)
(1) Artificial Intelligence journal, vol.21, nos.1,2, 1983
(two articles: pp.31-59, pp.61-98)
MOST COMPREHENSIVE ACCOUNT AVAILABLE, includes a description
of the program and its applications
(2) Lenat's chapter (pp. 243-306) in the book "Machine Learning"
(volume 1), edited by R.S. Michalski, J.G. Carbonell, and T.M. Mitchell,
Tioga Press, 1983
(3) The AI Magazine, vol.3, no.3, 1982 (summer), pp.17-33
CONCENTRATES ON THE APPLICATION of Eurisko
to the discovery of new VLSI microcircuit structures
(4) SIGART Newsletter (ACM Special Interest Group on AI),
No. 79, 1982 (January), pp.16-17
Anecdotal account of EURISKO's success in designing a
"fleet" which won a national wargame tournament
(5) "Why AM and EURISKO Appear to Work", Lenat and J. Seely Brown,
Artificial Intelligence journal, vol.23, no.3 (1984), pp.269-294
AN INSIGHTFUL ANALYSIS of the success of Lenat's 2 programs
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 23 May 86 17:29:02 edt
From: Derrell Piper <ecsvax!hobbit%mcnc.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: Re: VAX VMS LisP
> Are there any Common LisPs for the VAX under VMS? (DEC's VAX LisP is an
> Ultrix product only, so far as I know.)
>
> If there's no (decent) Common LisP, what is the best choice?
>
> Larry @ jpl-vlsi.arpa
Digital does market a version of Lisp that runs under VMS. I have version
1.2 on a ninty-day trial license.
Derrell Piper
120 Rosenau Hall (201H)
School of Public Health
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27514 (919) 966-5106
Bitnet: derrell@uncsphvx.BITNET
Usenet: ...decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!hobbit
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 May 86 08:55 EST
From: RLH <HAAR%RCSMPA%gmr.com@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: RE: VAX VMS LISP
In AILIST 4-124, Larry@JPL-VLSI,ARPA asks about availability of
Common LISP on VAX/VMS.
I don't know where you got your information, but DEC sells a good
version of Common LISP that runs under VMS or microVMS. As far as
I have seen, it is a complete and faithful implementation with
some additions for accessing system routines and calling code
written in other languages.
There is also a package that DEC calls tha AI Workstation that
consists of a VAXstation, Common LISP, and some LISP software
to do window-oriented editing, etc. on the bit-mapped display
of the VAXstation. I haven't used this yet, so I cannot comment.
I have heard that there will be Flavors and Common LOOPS available
as well, but haven't seen any hard evidence of this.
DEC appears to be firmly committed to Common LISP (any DECies
care to comment?). They even use Guy Steele's book "Common LISP"
as part of the documentation.
Bob Haar
G. M. Research Labs
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 86 16:06:37 GMT
From: decwrl!pyramid!pesnta!phri!cmcl2!harvard!knight@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: Conway's LIFE
(My e-mail didn't work, so I am posting to the net...)
There is a very good, very recent book on LIFE called "The Recursive
Universe" by William Poundstone, c 1985, William Morrow and Company,
publishers. The book doesn't contain any original LIFE discoveries,
but rather presents the great bulk of work on LIFE in the context of
modern physics, computation, and recursion.
Kevin Knight
(knight@harvard)
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 86 17:57:28 GMT
From: tektronix!tekgen!stever@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Steven D. Rogers)
Subject: RE: LIFE references
Another more general book that mentions the game of Life in
the broader context of games and life:
Laws of the Game, How the Principles of Nature Govern Change
by Manfred Eigen, and Ruthild Winkler, Harper Colophon Books
l981
It was sort of advertised as a "Godel, Escher, Bach" of games.
I don't think it quite made that level, but it is an interesting
book.
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 86 23:50:41 GMT
From: ihnp4!alberta!tony@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Tony Marsland)
Subject: International Computer Chess Association Journal
The current (March 1986) issue of the ICCA Journal has been received.
Aside from the following three technical articles, there are reports
on Ken Thompson's 5-piece endgame studies, showing that several endgames
are won in more than 50 moves, plus the usual reviews and short
articles. There is also an extensive study of most commercially available
chess machines by a Swedish group. This list is the most accurate and
scientific estimate of the relative playing strength of those programs.
The major articles are
"A review of game-tree pruning" by T.A. Marsland
"An overview of machine learning in computer chess" by S.S. Skiena
"A data base on data bases" by H.J. van den Herik and I.S. Herschberg
Information on the availability of this journal has been posted before.
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 86 19:05:00 GMT
From: pur-ee!uiucdcs!kadie@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
Subject: $1,000,000 Prize
This might be of general interest:
/* May 17, 1986 by chen@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU in uiucdcs:uiuc.ai */
/* ---------- "$1,000,000 for a program" ---------- */
The following was posted in net.game.go. In case you don't know about Go,
it is an ancient oriental board game played between two players
on a 19 by 19 grid. The best Go program so far is no better than an
intellegent novice that has received only one week intensive training.
/* May 14, 1986 by alex@sdcrdcf.UUCP in uiucdcsb:net.games.go */
/* ---------- "Million $ prize" ---------- */
I think this is a big news for the go community. The Chinese
Wei Chi(go in Chinese) Association(TWCA) in Taipei, Taiwan and conjunction
with one of Taiwan's largest computer company have put 2 million US
dollar in trust as prize money of computer go games. The top standing
prize is 1 million dollar for any computer go game defeating reigning
junior champion in Taiwan. The prize offer is good for 15 years.
(BTW, if you are wondering how they raise the prize money, take a look
at all the cheap IBM PC clones around.) The prize money is much more
interesting the Fredkin's prize. They are other prizes for the computer
go champion, etc.
The TWCA is the first organization offering prize money for
computer-computer and computer-human competition, according to my
and the computer go game pioneer Bruce, who appeared in TWCA first
computer tournament last January. Bruce lost twice and did not place
in top five. That tournament offered 2 to 3 thousand price money to the
winner. His first loss was to a go game written in BASIC running on
an Apple. Bruce was winning convincingly until the Apple games made
a suicide move which is legal under Chinese rule but not under Japanese
rule. Bruce's game went into loop. The judge allowed Bruce to fix his
code on the spot as long as he can make the move before his time clock
runs out. (They did not want Bruce to lose because he was the main
attraction, and I believe they paid him some appearance fee.) But
Bruce did not fix it right within the 30 minutes he had. I
did not stick around for his second loss. Bruce's game was running on
a 8MHz PC clone.
If you are interested in entering the next competition which
is in November, you better get the rule book on the Chinese rules, which
differ slightly from Japanese in area like suicide moves and scoring.
Last competition was restricted to personal computer, although I
find big disparity in computer power between a MacIntosh and an Apple
II. However, I don't think computing power is the main bottleneck right
now.
If there are enough people interested, I can get additional
detail about the tournament.
Also, a junior champion in Taiwan is about 1 dan in Chinese
amateur rating, which is about 5-6 dan in US and Japanese amateur
rating. Bruce's game was last rated to be 19Q in Japan human
tournament. He said he may push it to 11-12Q by November. I think Bruce
has got a good technique but his potential is limited by his knowledge of
go. But at any rate, you have your work cut out for you.
Alex Hwang
/* End of text from uiucdcsb:net.games.go */
/* End of text from uiucdcs:uiuc.ai */
------------------------------
Date: Thu 15 May 86 18:24:51-PDT
From: John Myers <JMYERS@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: IT*S Grammar
Sir:
I am writing to protest the continual misuse of the word "its" for
the third person neuter posessive, when everyone knows its the contraction
for "it is". I's hair stands on end everytime I see someone use it in they's
sentence. Ive even heard one grammarian state that he's book says that
personal pronouns all have a special posessive case form that doesnt use
"apostrophe-S"--hes off he's rocker! Youre well aware whatll happen to
you's reading material if this becomes common. Were going to have to keep we's
guard up, until its clear that peopleve gotten this straight! Its dreadful!!
Not only that, some peoplere even forming they's contractions with
an apostrophe. When they have a word phrase such as "it is", and they want
to write it's contraction, they's spelling is "it's"!! Ill never see where
they couldve gotten such atrocious grammar from, when if theyre unsure of
how to use "its", they only have to look it's meaning up in they's dictionary!!
Instructor: "My word! Where's your grammar, boy?"
Youth: "Watching soap on the TV."
John Myers~~
------------------------------
Date: Thu 15 May 86 18:56:44-PDT
From: John Myers <JMYERS@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Etymology of Foo-Bar
Item of interest:
FUBAR was originally an acronym for "Fouled" Up Beyond All Recognition,
stemming from the W.W.II era. It is related to SNAFU, and such short-lived
acronyms as FUBIO, FUBISO, GFU, JANFU, MFU, SAMFU, SAPFU, SNEFU, SUSFU,
TARFU, and TUIFU. Source: A Dictionary of Euphemisms & Other Doubletalk, Rawson.
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 86 15:41:39 GMT
From: tektronix!uw-beaver!bullwinkle!rochester!rocksanne!sunybcs!ellie
!colonel@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Col. G. L. Sicherman)
Subject: Re: Plan 5 for Inner Space
> Answers: about nine months, plus a few years training. And hospitals are
> charging on the order of $1000 now; but the care and feeding of the project
> will cost more. You do get a tax break.
Warning: the U.S. government no longer allows private ownership of these
units. Possession is permitted but subject to a long-term time limitation
which is determined on a case-by-case basis.
"Well, Doctor Eccles, how are the men feeling? Any cases of
frozen feet?"
"Duh, you didn't order any cases of frozen feet."
--
Col. G. L. Sicherman
UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel
CS: colonel@buffalo-cs
BI: csdsicher@sunyabva
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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