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AIList Digest Volume 4 Issue 244
AIList Digest Monday, 3 Nov 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 244
Today's Topics:
Query - AI in Rehabilitation Med,
AI Tools - Guru & PD Parser for Simple English Sentences,
Representations - Music,
Logic - Monotonicity,
Review - Weizenbaum Keynote Address at U of Waterloo
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Date: 30 Oct 86 23:15:35 EST
From: Steve blumenfrucht <BLUMENFRUCHT@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Subject: AIM in Rehabilitation Med
I am trying to find people doing artificial intelligence work in
the medical specialty of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
I am especially interested in finding MDs doing this.
Help/suggestions are appreciated. Reply to BLUMENFRUCHT@RUTGERS
------------------------------
Date: 29 Oct 86 14:37:31 GMT
From: ihnp4!houxm!mtuxo!mtune!mtunf!mtx5c!mtx5d!mtx5a!mtx5e!mtx5w!drv@
ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Re: OPINIONS REQUESTED ON GURU
> I'D APPRECIATE ANY COMMENTS THE GROUP HAS ON THE AI BASED PACKAGE <GURU>.
>
I had an evaluation copy of Guru here about a month ago.
I found it an interesting package with a lot of nice
features. I decided not to use it for a lot of reasons
specific to my application but I'll try not to let them
get in the way of my evaluation.
First, a short description of what Guru has. In addition
to a language and a set of features for creating rule-based
systems, Guru contains a text editor, a spreadsheet, a communications
package, a graphics package, a relational data base package, a
Unix shell-like procedural language, a menu and user prompt
facility and probably a few other things I've forgotten. The
rule-based system, editor and spreadsheet are the parts I looked
into most so my comments will be limited to those.
The editor and spreadsheet are not what you would call state-of-the-art.
There are standalone packages available for most PCs that are as
nice or nicer than Guru's in my opinion. While the menu interface
to Guru and the graphics package make nice use of the PC graphics,
neither the editor nor the spreadsheet use any graphics. It appears
that the Guru folks purchased these packages from outside and
integrated them in to their total system. That opinion is based
on nothing other than the rather different appearance these modules
have from each other.
The novel and nice feature that Guru has that prompted my to look
into it in the first place is the ability to reference different
portions of Guru from others. For example, within a spreadsheet
you can reference a rule-based system (which can access the data
in the spreadsheet) and fill in cells with results from a rule-
based execution (called a consultation in Guru). Similarly, within
the editor you can access the data base for results to be added to the
text, access the data base from within a rule based system, etc.
I spent a fair amount of time with the spreadsheet accessing
rules in a rule-based system. While I had a few difficulties due
to the way the rules address spreadsheet cells, I found the
procedure to work fairly well.
One thing that turned me off from Guru, in addition to the mismatch
with my intended application, was the price tag. $3000 seemed a
bit steep for me. But if you need most or many of the different
features rather than just a couple it might be a better investment
instead of buying separate components. And if you need to have
the integration between components such as spreadsheet and rule-based
system, I know of no other tool that does that. Then the price
might be well worth it.
Good luck and I hope this helps.
Dennis R. Vogel
AT&T Information Systems
Middletown, NJ
(201) 957-4951
------------------------------
Date: 31 Oct 86 15:43:16 GMT
From: ihnp4!drutx!mtuxo!mtune!mtunf!mtx5c!mtx5d!mtx5a!mtx5e!mtx5w!drv@
ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: More on Guru
I recently posted my experience with the Guru package.
In it I mentioned that the $3000 price tag scared me
off (in addition to other things). Well, it's worse
than that. Today we got a letter from Guru saying that
the introductory period for Guru has drawn to a close
along with the $2995 introductory price. Guru is now
priced at $6500 for a single user development system.
I should mention that Guru does offer run-time licenses
for less than this but the latest letter doesn't say what
they cost.
Dennis R. Vogel
AT&T Information Systems
Middletown, NJ
(201) 957-4951
------------------------------
Date: 30 Oct 86 23:13:47 GMT
From: fluke!ssc-vax!bcsaic!michaelm@beaver.cs.washington.edu
(Michael Maxwell)
Subject: Re: Seeking PD parser for simple English sentences.
In article <30@orion.UUCP> heins@orion.UUCP (Michael Heins) writes:
>I am looking for public domain software which I can use to help me parse
>simple English sentences into some kind of standardized representation.
>I guess what I am looking for would be a kind of sentence diagrammer
>which would not have to have any deep knowledge of the meanings of the
>nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.
>
>...C routines would be ideal. Also, references to published
>algorithms would be useful.
Since this seems to be a fairly common request, I am taking the liberty of
posting to the net...
Many Prologs (but not Turbo) have a built-in parser called `Definite Clause
Grammar' (DCG). It is a way of writing phrase structure rules, which Prolog
then translates into standard Prolog rules. Most standard texts on Prolog
discuss it, e.g.
%A W.F. Clocksin
%A C.S. Mellish
%D 1984
%T Programming in Prolog
%I Springer-Verlag
%C Berlin
A somewhat more sophisticated rule system was developed by Fernando Pereira in
his Ph.D. dissertation, published with some revision as:
%A Fernando Pereira
%D 1979
%T Extraposition Grammars
%R Working Paper No. 59
%I Department of Aritficial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh
%C Edinburgh
(You'd have to type the program in yourself; he includes a very simple
grammar of English.)
--
Mike Maxwell
Boeing Advanced Technology Center
...uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!michaelm
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 86 16:47:16 EST
From: "William J. Rapaport" <rapaport%buffalo.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: KR for Music
[Forwarded from the NL-KR Digest.]
For information on KR and music, see:
Ebcioglu, Kemal, "An Expert System for Chorale Harmonization," Proc.
AAAI-86, Vol. 2, pp. 784-788.
Ebcioglu, Kemal, "An Expert System for Harmonization of Chorales in the
Style of J. S. Bach," Tech. Report, Dept. of Computer Science, SUNY
Buffalo (1986).
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 86 15:54:18 est
From: lb0q@andrew.cmu.edu (Leslie Burkholder)
Subject: monotonicity
The monotonicity property of validity: If an argument is deductively valid
then it cannot be made invalid by adding new premises. Equivalently: If X, Y
are finite sets of sentences and S a sentence, then if X entails S, then X
union Y entails S.
The monotonicity property of consistency: If a set of sentences is
inconsistent then it cannot be made consistent by adding to it a new
sentence. Equivalently: If X is a finite set of sentences, S some sentence,
and X is inconsistent, then so is X union {S}.
Leslie Burkholder
------------------------------
Date: 2 Nov 86 04:04:36 GMT
From: rutgers!clyde!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!brewster@seismo.css.gov
(dave brewer, SD Eng, PAMI )
Subject: Weizenbaum keynote address at U of Waterloo (long)
The Hagey Lectures at the University of Waterloo provide an
opportunity for a distinguished researcher to address the
community at large every year. This year, Dr. Weizenbaum of
MIT was the chosen speaker, and he has just delivered two
key note addresses entitled; "Prospects for AI" and "The Arms
Race, Without Us".
The important points of the first talk can be summarized as :
1) AI has good prospects from an investment prospective since
a strong commitment to marketing something called AI has
been made.
2) the early researchers did not understand how difficult
the problems they addressed were and so the early claims
of the possibilities were greatly exaggerated. The trend
still continues but on a reduced scale.
3) AI has been a handle for some portion of the US military
to hang SDI on, since whenever a "difficult" problem
arises it is always possible to say , " Well, we don't
understand that now, but we can use AI techniques to
solve that problem later."
4) the actual achievements of AI are small.
5) the ability of expert systems to continuously monitor
stock values and react has led to increased volatility
and crisis situations in the stock markets of the world
recently. What happens if machine induced technical trading
drops the stock market by 20 % in one day , 50 % in one day ?
The important points of the second talk can be summarized as :
1) not all problems can be reduced to computation, for
example how could you conceive of coding the human
emotion loneliness.
2) AI will never duplicate or replace human intelligence
since every organism is a function of its history.
3) research can be divided into performance mode or theory
mode research. An increasing percentage of research is
now conducted in performance mode, despite possible
desires to do theory mode research, since funds (mainly
military), are available for performance mode research.
4) research on "mass murder machines" is possible because
the researchers (he addressed computer scientists
directly although extension to any technical or
scientific discipline was implied), are able to
psychologically distance themselves from the end use
of their work.
5) technical education that neglects language, culture,
and history, may need to be rethought.
6) courage is infectious, and while it may not seem to be
a possibility to some, the arms race could be stopped cold
if an entire group of professions, (ie computer scientists),
refused to participate.
7) the search for funds has led to an increased rate of
performance mode research, and has even induced many
institutions to prostitute themselves to the highest bidder.
Specific situations within MIT were used for examples.
Weizenbaum had the graciousness to ignore related (albeit
proportionally smaller), circumstances at this
university.
8) every researcher should assess the possible end use of
their own research, and if they are not morally comfortable
with this end use, they should stop their research. Weizenbaum
did not believe that this would be the end of all research,
but if that was the case then he would except this result.
He specifically referred to research in machine vision, which he
felt would be used directly and immediately by the military for
improving their killing machines. While not saying so, he implied
that this line of AI should be stopped dead in its tracks.
Poster's comments :
1) Weizenbaum seemed to be technically out of date in some areas,
and admitted as much at one point. Some of his opinions
regarding state of the art were suspect.
2) His background, technical and otherwise, seems to predispose
him to dismissing some technical issues a priori. i.e. a machine
can never duplicate a human, why ?, because !.
3) His most telling point, and one often ignored, is that
researchers have to be responsible for their work, and should
consider its possible end uses.
4) He did not appear to have thought through all the consequences
of a sudden end to research, and indeed many of his solutions
appear overly simplistic, in light of the complicated
world we live in.
5) You have never seen an audience squirm, as they did for the
second lecture. A once premier researcher, addresses his
contemporaries, and tells them they are ethically and morally
bankrupt, and every member of the audience has at least some
small buried doubt that maybe he is right.
6) Weizenbaum intended the talks to be "controversial and
provocative" and has achieved his goal within the U of W
community. While not agreeing with many of his points, I
believe that there are issues raised which are relevant to
the entire world-wide scientific community, and have posted
for this reason.
The main question that I see arising from the talks is : is it time
to consider banning, halting, slowing, or otherwise rethinking
certain AI or technical adventures, such as machine vision, as was
done in the area of recombinant DNA.
Disclaimer : The opinions above are mine and may not accurately
reflect those of U of Waterloo, Dr.Weizenbaum, or
anyone else for that matter. I make no claims as
to the accuracy of the above summarization and advise
that transcripts of the talks are available from some
place within U of W, but expect to pay for them because
thats the recent trend.
UUCP : {decvax|ihnp4}!watmath!watdcsu!brewster
Else : Dave Brewer, (519) 886-6657
------------------------------
Date: 3 Nov 86 02:48:23 GMT
From: tektronix!reed!trost@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Bill Trost)
Subject: Re: Weizenbaum keynote address at U of Waterloo (long)
In article <2689@watdcsu.UUCP> brewster@watdcsu.UUCP (dave brewer,
SD Eng, PAMI ) writes:
>
>The main question that I see arising from the talks is : is it time
>to consider banning, halting, slowing, or otherwise rethinking
>certain AI or technical adventures, such as machine vision, as was
>done in the area of recombinant DNA.
Somehow, I don't think that banning machine vision makes much sense. It
seems that it would be similar to banning automatic transmissions because
you can use them to make tanks. The device itself is not the hazard (as it
is in genetic research) -- it is the application.
--
Bill Trost, tektronix!reed!trost
"ACK!"
(quoted, without permission, from Bloom County)
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End of AIList Digest
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