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AIList Digest Volume 5 Issue 184
AIList Digest Monday, 20 Jul 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 184
Today's Topics:
Queries - Cooperating Expert Systems & Garbage Collection Suppression,
Comments - Expert System for Rocket Launching &
Automatic Implementation of Abstract Specifications &
ANIMAL in BASIC & Immortality via Computer,
Correction - Spang Robinson Report, June 1987,
Perception - Natural Kinds
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 87 01:24 EDT
From: Arnold@DOCKMASTER.ARPA
Subject: Query - Cooperating Expert Systems
I am looking for information on cooperating expert systems. Any pointers,
references, etc would be appreciated.
Terry S. Arnold
Merdan Group
4617 Ruffner St.
San Diego
CA 92111
Arnold -at Dockmaster
(619) 571-8565
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 87 08:32:41 edt
From: nancy@grasp.cis.upenn.edu (Nancy Orlando)
Subject: Garbage Collection Suppression
Are there any "accepted" methods of writing code that minimize a LISP's
tendancy to garbage-collect? I don't mean a switch to turn it off;
just a means of minimizing the need for it. I'm dealing particularly with
DEC VAX lisp. I have assumed that iteration as opposed to recursion was
one way; is this correct? Are there other techniques?
Nancy Sliwa
nancy@grasp.cis.upenn.edu or nesliwa%telemail@orion.arpa
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jul 87 16:42:47 GMT
From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle)
Reply-to: jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle)
Subject: Re: bm654 - Spang Robinson 3#6, 6/87
>Rome Air Force Development Center is building a system to help decide
>if foreign rocket launches are threats.
I saw the RFP for that one go by when I was at Ford Aerospace.
I recommended that we not bid, pointing out that an expert system to
make launch-on-warning decisions was a singularly bad idea. Seen
in that light, no one at Ford wanted to have anything to do with the program.
Nevertheless, RADC apparently found somebody willing to spend their money.
Fortunately, most of what RADC funds never gets deployed.
John Nagle
------------------------------
Date: 14 Jul 87 16:00:32 GMT
From: eagle!icdoc!esh@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Hayes)
Subject: Re: Automatic implementation of abstract specifications
I just saw an article giving an inexact reference to an MIT technical report
by MK Srivas, The exact reference (I just happened to have it on my desk) is:
MIT/LCS/TR-276
Automatic Synthesis of Implementations
for
Abstract Data Types from
Algebraic Specifications
Mandayam K Srivas
June 1982
- hope this is of help.
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jul 87 06:30:19 GMT
From: psivax!polyslo!mshapiro@seismo.CSS.GOV (Mitch Shapiro)
Reply-to: psivax!polyslo!mshapiro@seismo.CSS.GOV (Mitch Shapiro)
Subject: Re: ANIMAL in BASIC ???
In article <8707090304.AA15222@humu.ARPA> dbrauer@humu.UUCP (David L.
Brauer) writes:
>Somewhere in the darkest reaches of my memory I recall seeing a listing
>of the game ANIMAL in BASIC. It's that old standby introduction to rule-based
>reasoning that tries to deduce what animal you have in mind by asking
>questions like "Does it have feathers?", "Does it have hooves?" etc.
There was originally shipped with the Apple II's (maybe for subsequent
machines as well) that very program written in BASIC. It learned new
animals and stored them in a text file (I think). But it did learn
learn them. Find someone you know who has an Apple II. I believe this
was shipped with DOS 3.1. -- Yes, I have a pretty old Apple. #7919
just in case anyone out there cares.
Mitch Shapiro
mshapiro@polyslo (well, for all of another 3 days, that is.)
"It has been said that when Science climbs the crest of the hill,
it will see that religion has been sitting there all along."
--- Dr. Harry Wolper
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jul 87 19:12:42 GMT
From: David L. Brauer <humu!dbrauer%nosc.UUCP@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu>
Reply-to: dbrauer@humu.nosc.mil.UUCP (David L. Brauer)
Subject: Re: ANIMAL in BASIC ???
Thanks to all who responded to my request for pointers to Animal in
BASIC. The listing can be found in 101 BASIC Games by David H. Ahl.
There also may be a version on one of the Apple DOS distributions,
although I haven't found it yet. Please, no more lectures on why
Animal should not be called a rule-based or expert system. I'm aware
that it is a simple tree traversal algorithm. Merely a misnomer on
my part. I thought I had seen the listing in an "Intro to AI" slick,
that is why I worded the request that way.
David C. Brauer
MilNet: dbrauer@NOSC.mil
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 87 08:39 EST
From: MNORTON%rca.com@RELAY.CS.NET
Subject: Re: Immortality via Computer
Concerning the AP story on attaining immortality via computers, readers
of AIList intrested in thinking more about this may wish to read
Fredrick Pohl's new book, "Annals of the Heechee", the forth book in
the series which began with "Gateway." Mr. Pohl explores some of the
implications of computer subsumption of consciousness, which he calls
'vastening' in the story. Some of the topics touched on include
altered preception of reality, differing time-rates between biologicals
and computers, and non-corporeal being.
Mark J. Norton, RCA Advanced Technology Laboratories, AI Lab.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1987 19:31 CST
From: Leff (Southern Methodist University)
<E1AR0002%SMUVM1.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: Corrections
Response to errors discovered by Linda Mead:
In the summary of the June 1987 Spang Robinson Report, the following
corrections should be noted:
1) "The pilot's associate project aims to produce a refrigerator
sized computing system, having functionality comparable to a
3-inch by 5-inch checklist card." The d in "card" was missing.
2) Charles Anderson was not precisely identified:
He is a Lt. Col., deputy of technology development for SDI in the
Command and Control Directorate at Rome Air Development Center at
Griffis Air Force Base.
3) The statment regarding "AI research for SDI" was that it "would
be relatively nil for awhile." No specific statement on it's "use"
was made by Spang Robinson Report.
(The paragraph on this subject in the summary had an extraneous
double quote character due to a typo. A direct quote was not
made.
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jul 87 13:33:46 GMT
From: mcvax!botter!hansw@seismo.css.gov (Hans Weigand)
Subject: Re: natural kinds
It seems to me that _at least_ three kinds of "natural kinds" should be
distinguished:
(1) genetic kinds, existing by virtue of reproduction
("a horse is a horse because it is born from a horse")
Examples: animal and vegetable species
(2) mimetic kinds, existing by virtue of imitation, to be
subdivided in
(a) iconic kinds (by causally determined representation)
(the "Xerox-principle" of Dretske: an image of an image of x is
again an image of x)
Examples: all linguistic symbols (graphic or phonemic)
(b) artificial kinds (by imitation on purpose),
existing by virtue of preconceived design followed by
numerous production (the "Ford-principle" |-) )
Examples: car models, coins
(c) fashion kinds (by copying behavior, largely uncontrolled)
Examples: social groups (punks, yuppies, ..), styles of art, etc.
(3) anthropic/functional kinds, existing by virtue of readiness_to_hand
Examples: chair, cup, house, knife, game
The last one needs some comments. Each human being needs
certain things in order to survive and live in a satisfactory way.
These things are mainly determined by the functioning of the
human body and community, although there are also environmental and
historical-cultural influences. Thus we may recognize an
Eskimo iglo, and an African pile-dwelling both as "houses".
I think it is not so much the form (iconicity) that matters,
but rather that we feel that, when we would live in Greenland
(resp. the jungle), we would naturally appreciate or use these things
as houses too (to protect us against cold, dangers). Similar
arguments can be made for chair etc.. Moreover, (3) combines
with (2). We are born into a human society. Our parents
had the same needs as we have, so each generation copies these
"anthropic kinds" and transfers them to a next generation. This
makes it the more easy to recognize a (say Western) house. [In
most discussions on "family kinds" and so on, (2) and (3) are
not properly distinguished].
"Don't ask what a kind _is_, but rather how it _persists_"
Hans Weigand (hansw@cs.vu.nl)
------------------------------
Date: Sat 18 Jul 87 15:17:43-CDT
From: Robert L. Causey <AI.CAUSEY@R20.UTEXAS.EDU>
Subject: Natural Kinds
In a message posted 7/15, John McCarthy says that philosophers
have recently introduced the concept of natural kind, and he
suggests how this concept may be useful in AI. I think this
deserves serious comment, both historical and substantive. The
following is lengthy, but it may illustrate some general
characteristics about the relationships between philosophy and AI.
HISTORY
In their messages, Ken Laws and others are correct -- the idea of
natural kinds is not new. It is at least implicit in some
Pre-Socratic Greek philosophy, and Aristotle extensively
developed the idea and applied it in both philosophy and biology.
Aristotle's conception is too "essentialist" to fit what McCarthy
refers to.
In the late 1600's John Locke developed an impressive empiricist
analysis of natural kinds. Further developments were contributed
in the 1800's in J. S. Mill's, _A_System_Of_Logic_. Mill also
made important contributions to our understanding of inductive
reasoning and scientific explanation; these are related to
natural kinds.
In our century a number of concepts of natural kinds have been
proposed, ranging from strongly empiricist "cluster" approaches
(which need NOT preclude expanding the cluster of attributes
through the discovery of new knowledge, cf. McCarthy 7/17), to
various modal analyses, to some intermediate approaches. Any of
these analyses may have some value depending on the intended
application, but the traditional notion of natural kinds has
almost always been connected somehow with the idea of natural
laws.
SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES
1. Whatever one's favorite analysis might be, it is important to
distinguish between a NATURAL kind (e.g., the compound silicon
dioxide, with nomologically determined physical and chemical
attributes), and a functional concept like "chair". There is
generally not a simple one-to-one correspondence between our
functional classifications of objects and the classification
systems that are developed in the natural sciences. This is true
in spite of the fact that we can learn to recognize sand,
penguins, and chairs. But things are not always so simple -
Suppose that Rip van Winkle learns in 1940 to recognize at sight
a 1940-style adding machine; he then sleeps for 47 years. Upon
waking in 1987 he probably would not recognize at sight what a
thin, wallet calculator is. Functional classifications are
useful, but we should not assume that they are generated and
processed in the same ways as natural classifications. In
particular, since functional classifications often involve an
abstract understanding of complex behavioral dispositions, they
are particularly hard to learn once one gets beyond simple things
like chairs and tables.
2. Even discovering the classic examples of NATURAL kinds (like the
classification of the chemical elements) can be a long and
difficult process. It requires numerous inductive
generalizations to confirm that the attributes in a certain Set
of attributes each apply to gold, and that the attributes in some
other Set of attributes apply to iodine, etc. We further
recognize that our KNOWLEDGE of what are the elements of these
Sets of attributes grows with the general growth of our
scientific knowledge. Also, we need not always use the same set
of attributes for IDENTIFICATION of instances of a natural kind.
Most of this goes back to Locke, and philosophers have long
recognized the connection between induction and classification;
Carnap, Hempel, Goodman, and others, have sharpened some of the
issues during the last 50 years.
3. Now, getting back to McCarthy's suggestion -- in his second
message (7/17) he writes: "...for a child to presume a natural
kind on hearing a word or seeing an object is advantageous, and
it will also be advantageous to built (sic) AI systems with this
presumption." His 7/15 message says, "When an object is named,
the system should generate a gensym, e.g., GOO137. To this
symbol should be attached the name and what the system is to
remember about the instance." This is an interesting suggestion,
but it prompts some comments and questions:
i) Assuming that children do begin to presume natural kinds at
some stage of development, what inductive processes are they
using, what biologically determined constraints are affecting
these processes, and what prior acquired knowledge is directing
their inductions. These are interesting psychological questions.
But, depending on our applications, we may not even want to build
robots that emulate young children. We can attach a name
to a gensym, but it is not at all easy to decide "...what the
system is to remember about the instance," or to specify how
it is to process all of the stuff it generates in this manner.
ii) Children receive much corrective feedback from other people;
how much feedback will we be willing or able to give to the
"maturing" robots? Will the more mature robots help train the
naive ones?
iii) Given that classification does involve complex inductive
reasoning, we need to learn a lot more about how to implement
effective inductive procedures, where "induction" is understood
very broadly.
iv) If the AI systems (robots, etc.) are to learn, and reason with,
functional concepts, then things get even more complex. Ability
to make abstractions and perform complex analogical reasoning
will be required. In my judgment, we (humans) still have a lot
to learn just about the representation of functional knowledge.
If my Rip van Winkle story seems farfetched, here is a true
story. I know a person who is familiar with the appearance and
use of 5 1/4 inch floppy diskettes. Upon first seeing a 3.5 inch
mini-diskette, she had no idea what it was until its function was
described. Knowledge of diskettes can extend to tracks, sectors,
etc. The concept of natural kinds is relatively simple (though
often difficult to apply); functional concepts and their
relations with physical structures are harder subjects.
------------------------------
Date: 18 Jul 87 2315 PDT
From: John McCarthy <JMC@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: re: [Robert L. Causey <AI.CAUSEY@R20.UTEXAS.EDU>: Natural
Kinds]
[In reply to message from AI.CAUSEY@R20.UTEXAS.EDU sent Sat 18 Jul 87.]
I agree with Bob Causey's comments and agree that the open questions he
lists are unsolved and important. I have one caveat. The distinction
between nomological and functional kinds exists in sufficiently elaborate
mental structures, but I don't think that under 2 year olds make the
distinction, i.e. have different mechanisms for learning them. For this
reason, it is an open question whether it should be a primary distinction
for robots. In a small child's world, chairs are distinguished from other
objects by appearance, not by function. Evidence: a child doesn't refer
to different appearing objects on which he can also sit as chairs.
Concession: there may be such a category "sittable" in "mentalese", and
languages with such categories might be as easily learnable as English.
What saves the child from having to make the distinction between kinds
of kinds at an early age is that so many of the kinds in his life are
distinguishable from each other in many ways. The child might indeed
be fooled by the different generations of calculator, but usually he's
lucky.
I hope to comment later on how robots should be programmed to identify
and use kinds.
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End of AIList Digest
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