Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
AIList Digest Volume 5 Issue 055
AIList Digest Tuesday, 24 Feb 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 55
Today's Topics:
AI Tools - Language Comparisons & Prolog & DEC AI Workstation,
Application - Legal Reasoning,
Literature - Learing about AI & Automatic Theorem Proving
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 87 12:31:00 EST
From: "CUGINI, JOHN" <cugini@icst-ecf>
Reply-to: "CUGINI, JOHN" <cugini@icst-ecf>
Subject: speaking of language comparisons
I just finished up a report, published by the Institute for Computer
Sciences and Technology / National Bureau of Standards, comparing
Common Lisp, C-Prolog, and OPS5. This is a nitty-gritty comparison-
of-features type of paper, 70 pages. It's targeted at programmers
who are just entering the wonderful world of knowledge-based systems.
The grizzled AI veteran will probably not find a wealth of new
insights.
Anyway, for those interested, it's:
NBS Special Publication 500-145
Programming Languages for Knowledge-Based Systems
order from:
Superintendent of Documents
US Government Printing Office
Washington DC 20402
GPO stock number: 003-003-02783-9
price: $4.00
John Cugini <Cugini@icst-ecf>
------------------------------
Date: 11 Feb 87 12:30:00 GMT
From: mcvax!unido!ztivax!steve@seismo.css.gov
Subject: Re: prolog information wanted - (nf)
>I am looking for a good book or two about frame based systems implemented
>in Prolog. I am especially interested in examples of code and data
>structures. If you know of any such books, please send the name, etc.,
>to this login. Thanks in advance.
>
> Lance
> ihnp4!ihuxj!lance
I thought Prolog didn't have any data structures :-)
------------------------------
Date: 18 Feb 87 21:29:42 PST (Wed)
From: spar!malcolm@decwrl.DEC.COM
Subject: Re: DEC AI Workstation
In article <8702121349.AA14488@csv.rpi.edu> yerazuws@CSV.RPI.EDU (Crah) writes:
> I wouldn't bother with the SUN, especially in a diskless
>configuration. I wasted (yes, wasted) nine months trying to develop
>an architecture simulator on Sun 2's. Little things like a server
>being slow can completely hang your LISP and your editor - so you sit.
>And sit. And forget what you were doing...
You're right....don't even think about running Lisp on a Sun-2. On the
other hand Sun-3's (which are three times faster in general than Sun-2's)
make a fast lisp workstation.
BUT, you must have enough memory on the system to make sure that you
don't page when you garbage collect. I work with both Franz and Lucid
Common Lisp and they both copy the workspace to garbage collect. When you
have to go to the disk (or network) every time you want to garbage collect
then you lose big. And then you finish GC and start doing real work again
and all the pages you want have already been flushed.
I suspect that the reason the limited memory isn't as much a factor with
Symbolics workstations is because they do incremental garbage collection.
When you are working normally everything works fast.....but go away for
a while and come back and watch the swap bar turn solid black for a few
seconds.
Franz Common Lisp can run quite nicely in 9M of memory. Memory is real
cheap these days. I have 16M on my desk and I almost never page while
switching back and forth between Lisp and other windows I am using.
As far as performance goes, I have seen a Sun3/160 running anywhere between
.5 and 4 times a Symbolics 3600. Moving to a Sun3/260 gives you another
factor of two performance improvement. Sun's can match the speed of a
Symbolics workstation....now if they can just make the environment as nice.
Cheers.
Malcolm
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 87 09:50:27 est
From: mnetor!lsuc!dave@seismo.CSS.GOV
Subject: Re: Legal reasoning
To: watmath!clyde!cbatt!ucbvax!ENIAC.SEAS.UPENN.EDU!mayerk
Subject: Re: Legal reasoning
Newsgroups: mod.ai
In-Reply-To: <8702160344.AA01571@eniac.seas.upenn.edu>
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Cc: mnetor!seismo!sri-stripe.arpa!ailist
In article <8702160344.AA01571@eniac.seas.upenn.edu> you write:
>
>Could someone give some pointers into the literature about legal
>reasoning. Or better yet, someone you know whom I could contact.
There's a conference coming up in May at Northeastern University
in Boston, the First International Conference on Artificial
Intelligence and Law. Contact Carole Hafner at Northeastern
or Thorne McCarty at Rutgers (mccarty@rutgers.edu).
Major projects which have been undertaken include McCarty's
TAXMAN system, Kowalski & Sergot's work in Prolog at
Imperial College (Univ. of London), Jim Sprowl's ABF
Processor, Layman Allen & Charles Saxon's work at U of
Michigan, and many others. Check the Rutgers Journal of
Computers, Technology & the Law; also law periodical
indexes under "automation".
There have been two conferences on Law & Computers at the
Univ of Houston, organized by Charles Walter. The 1984 conference
papers were published as a book, "Computing Power and Legal
Reasoning", published by West Publishing Co (St. Paul, MN),
ISBN 0-314-96670-4. The 1985 papers haven't yet been published
that I know of. Both had papers from just about everyone working
in this field in North America, as well as a few from Europe.
I recently completed an LL.M. thesis, "Blueprint for a Computer-Based
Model of the Income Tax Act of Canada", at Osgoode Hall Law School
(York University, Toronto), which contains an implementation of
tax law in Prolog and surveys previous work. (I've also submitted
a condensed version as a paper to the AI & Law conference.)
I can send you a copy if you like.
David Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
Osgoode Hall
Toronto, Canada M5B 2N6
(416) 947-3466
dave@lsuc.UUCP
{ seismo!mnetor cbosgd!utgpu watmath decvax!utcsri ihnp4!utzoo } !lsuc!dave
------------------------------
Date: 17 Feb 87 17:27:59 GMT
From: ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews@BEAVER.CS.WASHINGTON.EDU (Jamie Andrews)
Subject: Re: Learing about AI
In article <278@vax1.ccs.cornell.edu> czhj@vax1.UUCP (Ted Inoue) writes:
>But look at the approach that LOGIC gives AI. It is a purely reductionist
>view, akin to studying global plate motion at the level of sub-atomic
>particles. It is simply the wrong level at which to approach the problem.
This is too generalized. There are good applications of logic
to AI, and there are bad ones. Only by knowing a lot about logic *and*
the structure of the problem domain can you tell which is which.
I would agree that predicate logic techniques have often been
applied to problems in a way that leaves out inordinately large chunks
of the domain. However, the same could be said about most AI techniques.
--Jamie.
...!seismo!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
"Take my shoes off & throw them in the lake"
------------------------------
Date: 21 Feb 87 22:07:01 GMT
From: ihnp4!chinet!nucsrl!ragerj@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (John Rager)
Subject: Re: Learing about AI (was Re: A List of AI Books (for
beginners))
from: / sher@rochester.ARPA (David Sher) / 8:17 am Feb 13, 1987 /
>I think there seems to be something of a misconception regarding the
>place of logic wrt AI and computer science in general. To start with
>I will declare this:
> Logic is a language for expressing mathematical constructs.
>It is not a science and as far as artificial intelligence is concerned
>the mathematics of logic are not very relevant. Its main feature
>is that it can be used for precise expression.
Logic is a branch of mathematics. The last time I checked mathematics
was a science. Its relevancy to AI is a matter of opinion.
> So why use logic rather than a more familiar language, like english.
> ...
> However the problem is that few of us knowledge
> engineers have the talent to be precise in our everyday language.
>Thus for decades engineers, scientists, and statisticians have used
>logic to express their ideas since even an incompetent speaker can be
>clear and precise using logical formalisms. However like any language
>with expressive power one can be totally incomprehensible using logic.
First, you aren't talking about Logic, you are talking
about mathematical notation. Second, the reason that mathematicians use
this notation has nothing to do with their inability to express concepts in
English. It has to do with the inexpressibliity of the concepts in 'ordinary
English'. Mathematical notation is the specialized language of the
mathematical disciplines. All disciplines have a specialized language, a set
of terms with precise meanings in that field. A good philosopher, writing
a good paper, writes in what seems to be ordinary English. It is not. It is
English augmented by the argot of the field. This is true even though the
difference may not be obvious to an outsider, since it looks like English.
The language of mathematics doesn't look like English.
So where does this leave English? It is a wonderful language and I love it.
It is not a specialized tool for working in a particular discipline. It
is a means of everyday communication, an amazing miracle of generality.
It does not have the expressive power of logic. Do not try to use it for what
it is not suited for. (Before anyone says anything, when the first English
grammars were devised they were modeled on these of Latin, in which
language one does not end sentences with prepositions. It has always been
common practice to use propositions as sentence-ending particles in English.)
>Note: I am not a logician but I use a lot of logic in my everyday
>work which is probabilistic analysis of computer vision problems
>-David Sher
When you say you use a lot of logic, do you really mean it? Recursive
function theory? Saturated model theory? Or do you mean you use the
vernacular of the mathematician?
John Rager
sher@rochester
{allegra,seismo}!rochester!sher
------------------------------
Date: 23 Feb 87 16:56:02 GMT
From: jbn@glacier.stanford.edu (John B. Nagle)
Subject: Re: automatic theorem proving
The best thinking on the subject is in "A Computational Logic", by
Robert Boyer and Jay Moore (Academic Press, 1979, ISBN 0-12-122950-5).
The field has regressed somewhat since then.
John Nagle
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
********************
