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AIList Digest Volume 5 Issue 232
AIList Digest Monday, 12 Oct 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 232
Today's Topics:
Representation - Time Bibliography,
Business - Expert Systems Company Financing,
Games - International Computer-Othello Match,
Philosophy - Goal of AI & Flawed Minds
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 87 15:23:36 PDT
From: ladkin@kestrel.ARPA (Peter Ladkin)
Subject: time bibliography
ailist readers might like to note that richard shu's bibliography
misses halpern and shoham's paper in LICS 1986, pelavin and allen's
paper in the Proceedings of the IEEE for October 1986, and also papers
published in AAAI-87 and IJCAI-87. Additionally, there is a large
literature on points and periods in philosophy since Rescher and
Urquhardt, to which one can get pointers from Kuhn's review of van
Benthem that I referenced. In a complete list of temporal reasoning,
one should also include the huge amount of literature from program
semantics, especially the semantics of concurrency. It was
interesting to note that Shu's bibliography and mine were almost
disjoint ............
peter ladkin
ladkin@kestrel.arpa
------------------------------
Date: 9 Oct 87 14:12:15 GMT
From: amdcad!sun!sundc!potomac!grover@ames.arpa (Mark D. Grover)
Subject: Re: Bibliography on Temporal Representation and Reasoning
I had a relevant article in AAAI 82:
Grover, M.D. "A Synthetic Approach to Temporal Information
Processing", AAAI-82, pg. 91-4.
Based on my PhD dissertation, the work addresses the use of Montague
Grammar-based temporal representations of complex English verb tense.
- MDG -
--
--> Our site is in transition. Please use one of the addresses below. <--
Mark D. Grover (grover@ads.ARPA) UUCP: ames!amdcad!sun!sundc!potomac!grover
Advanced Decision Systems 1500 Wilson Blvd #512; Arlington, VA 22209
Future address: grover@dc.ads.com "I've been ionized... but I'm okay now."
------------------------------
Date: 6 Oct 87 02:21:35 GMT
From: oliveb!intelca!mipos3!omepd!chedley@ames.arpa (CHEDLEY)
Subject: Re: Expert Systems Company Financing...
In article <7260@dartvax.UUCP> waltervj@dartvax.UUCP (walter jeffries) writes:
>
>I am not the business end of things but
>would appreciate any comments/experiences that people may have with getting
>capital (sources, things to be careful of, etc.). Of course, if you want to
>invest money as well as advice that would be appreciated too :-).
>
There are three major sources of money for start-up financing:
1) Money from the owners/starters of the company: In this case it is your and
your partners' own savings and personal loans (credit cards, Home equity loans,
personal unsecured bank loans,..)
MONEY FROM THIS SOURCE IS TYPICALLY INSUFFICIENT TO GET THE BUSINESS ROLLING
2) Venture Capital: This money belongs to funds(*), companies or private
individuals who are looking to invest in start-up businesses. In return they
require the "ownership" of a portion of the business, along with some other
conditions (oversight on the books of the company, a say in management
appointments, options on the share of the company if and when it goes
public,...etc)
MONEY FROM THIS SOURCE IS RELATIVELY AVAILABLE.
3) Govrmt Money (State/Federal) : This is typically an easy conditions loan
(low interest rate, long grace period, easy payment schedule..) provided by
some state or federal agencies to promote small and start companies.
Try to tap this source to the max. And you do not have to be a woman or a
member of a minority group to qualify for this cheap source of financing.
GOVRNMT MONEY IS THE CHEAPEST SOURCE OF FINANCING START UPS
Due to the constraints of the venture capitalist's money, it is advantageous
to leverage it as much as possible with the other sources's money. That is,
for each dollar from source 1 or 3, get the maximum venture capital you can
reach for.
(*): There are even a few venture capital mutual funds out there.
..CHEDLEY..
------------------------------
Date: 7 Oct 87 18:20:12 GMT
From: amdahl!oliveb!epimass!epiwrl!shore@ames.arpa (John Shore)
Subject: Re: Expert Systems Company Financing...
In article <7260@dartvax.UUCP> waltervj@dartvax.UUCP (walter jeffries) writes:
>
>I am in the process of starting a company to do expert systems developement
>in the field of psychiatry....
>...(sources, things to be careful of, etc.)....
Things to be careful of? Expert systems and AI.
js
------------------------------
Date: 6 Oct 87 01:17:50 GMT
From: mcvax!nikhefk!kvr@uunet.uu.net (kees van rijn)
Subject: intercontinental computer - othello match
INTERCONTINENTAL COMPUTER - OTHELLO MATCH
Last saturday there was a computer-othello match of
MY TURN in The Netherlands with
BILL in the USA.
MY TURN has been written by Cas Wilders and won the
preceding local mini-tournament in Amsterdam with
REV87 (by Joost Buys),
MAST87 (by Ron Kroonenberg) and
BADIA1.2 (by Marcel van Tien).
BILL is vice-champion of the USA since last US' tournament,
some years ago.
BILL has been written by Kai-Fu Lee and Sanjoy Mahajan.
Communication between Pittsburgh USA
and Amsterdam NL took place via EARN / BITNET.
After this match, there were also games of
REV87 and MAST87 with BILL via this communication channel.
All games were won by BILL.
In the first match MY TURN got low mobility because of
a wrong move in the beginning. It was hopeless to continue
and Cas resigned. For the other two games, the level of the
participants was probably near equal, though initially REV87
had also problems with mobility, but it recovered.
For non-experts in othello, like me, it is however very difficult
to estimate the real value of a position.
All of us agreed that it is a very hard job to improve
strength of the programs further with known techniques.
According to Kai-Fu, faster machines lead only to marginal
improvement, and better search algorithm is too hard.
We think that most improvement of last years is from implementation
of specific othello knowledge into the programs.
However, probably the level of present programs is so
high, that in a tournament of best computer programs with
best human players, computers will win more than 80% of
the games.
Technically, the communication channel was good, though exact
time checking was impossible because of a delay of
about 5 seconds before a move arrived. This time is not
garanteed, and it is also not yet possible for the participants
to check the time that a message was sent.
Another problem was that backspaces from Amsterdam were not
executed, but turned into periods, so that careful typing was
required. We were later told that delete probably would
have been effective.
And sometimes, messages from other people were disturbing
clear communication.
Generally speaking however, the match passed off very successfully.
kees van rijn
(organizer)
------------------------------
Date: 6 Oct 87 21:04:05 GMT
From: PT!speech2.cs.cmu.edu!kfl@cs.rochester.edu (Fu Lee)
Subject: Re: intercontinental computer - othello match
In article <248@nikhefk.UUCP>, kvr@nikhefk.UUCP (kees van rijn) writes:
>
> INTERCONTINENTAL COMPUTER - OTHELLO MATCH
>
> Last saturday there was a computer-othello match of
> MY TURN in The Netherlands with
> BILL in the USA.
> ....
Thanks to Kees for organizing this match, and for this accurate
commentary. There were, however, a few misunderstandings which
I hope to clarify.
> All of us agreed that it is a very hard job to improve
> strength of the programs further with known techniques.
> According to Kai-Fu, faster machines lead only to marginal
> improvement, and better search algorithm is too hard.
Actually, I believe faster machines will lead to substantial improvement,
as they did for chess. However, making othello hardware is not as
fruitful since current programs already outplay humans, and since there
are no incentives. I think an improved search algorithm is both
more effective and intellectually satisfying. However, our attempts
in the past year have not been encouraging.
>We think that most improvement of last years is from implementation
>of specific othello knowledge into the programs.
Actually, the two major contributions from BILL are: (1) encoding all
Othello knowledge into tables for fast evaluation, and (2) Bayesian
learning of how to combine evaluation features.
> kees van rijn
> (organizer)
Kai-Fu Lee
------------------------------
Date: 4 Oct 87 18:23:43 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtune!codas!usfvax2!pdn!alan@ucbvax.Berkeley.E
DU (Alan Lovejoy)
Subject: Re: Goal of AI: where are we going?
In article <46400008@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> morgan@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
/Maybe you should approach it as a scientist, rather than an engineer. Think
/of the physicists: they aren't out to fix the universe, or construct an
/imitation; they want to understand it. What AI really ought to be is a
/science that studies intelligence, with the goal of understanding it by
/rigorous theoretical work, and by empirical study of
/systems that appear to have intelligence, whatever that is. The best work
/in AI, in my opinion, has this scientific flavor. Then it's up to the
/engineers (or society at large) to decide what to do with the knowledge
/gained, in terms of constructing practical systems.
The word "artificial" implies either an imitation or synthetic object,
or the general/abstract laws governing an entire class of such objects.
The question is, does "artifical intelligence" mean "synthetic and/or
imitation intelligence" (most computer programs currently fall into this
category :-) ) or "real intelligence exhibited by artifical systems"?
Is AI mostly concerned with the *faking* of intelligence, with intelligence
per se or with intelligence as exhibited by artificial systems?
Given the current state of the art, perhaps it should be called
"Real Stupidity". (Only half :-) ).
The "scientific" study of intelligence would involve such subfields as
cognition, semantics, linguistics, semiotics, psychology, mathematics,
cybernetics and a host of other disciplines I can't think of right now,
some of which probably don't exist yet. Creating an intelligent
"artifact" (artificial intelligence) is only a "scientific" endeavor to
the extent it serves as experimental proof (or refutation) of some
*scientific* theory, or else as the raw data from which a theory is induced.
If the purpose of AI is to build a computer just as smart as a human
being because that would be a useful tool, then it's engineering.
If the purpose is to prove or induce theories about intelligence, then it's
scientific. It appears that both cases probably apply.
It is disturbing how often "science" is confused with "technology"
and/or "engineering". People also tend to forget that science involves
both the formulating of theories AND experiments. Experiments often
require a great deal of mundane (and sometimes not so mundane)
engineering work. AI came about because computers opened up a whole
new way to experimentally test theories about intelligence.
Physicists might very well try to construct an "artificial" universe,
if it would help to prove or induce a physical theory (the "Big Bang",
for instance). They'd probably require a lot of help from the engineers,
though (and probably a permit from the EPA :-) ).
--alan@pdn
------------------------------
Date: 5 Oct 87 23:11:11 GMT
From: PT!isl1.ri.cmu.edu!cycy@cs.rochester.edu (Christopher Young)
Subject: Re: Goal of AI: where are we going?
In article <1330@houdi.UUCP>, marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT) writes:
> Point two, we keep using the human mind as a tool, to solve problems.
> As such, it is not merely a phenomenon, but a means to an end, and is
> subject to judgments of its utility for that purpose. Now we can say
> whether it is perfect or flawed. Obviously, it is not perfect, since
> we often make mistakes when we use it. Score one for Ware.
This is true. However, this is not the only use for the human mind. The
human mind is also used to imagine fanciful dreams, to love and hate and
otherwise feel emotion, and to make value judgement even when there is no
real logical reason for choosing option one over option two. So perhaps it
can be flawed in one way, but not in others (since it is difficult to say
what is flawed in some of these instances).
--
-- Chris. (cycy@isl1.ri.cmu.edu)
I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure
you realise that what you heard is not what I meant.
------------------------------
Date: 5 Oct 87 22:58:34 GMT
From: PT!isl1.ri.cmu.edu!cycy@cs.rochester.edu (Christopher Young)
Subject: Re: Goal of AI: where are we going?
In article <270@uwslh.UUCP>, lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Christopher Lishka) writes:
> To me this seems to be one of many problems in A.I.: the assumption
> that the human mind can be looked at as a machine, and can be analyzed
> as having flaws or not, and subsequently be fixed or not.
>
> A comment: why don't A.I. "people" use the human mind as a model, for
> better or for worse, and not try to label it as "flawed" or "perfect?"
I guess I basically agree, though I certainly feel that there are some
people whose reasoning is either flawed or barely existent, and it is true
in fact that physiological parameters can affect thought, and that these
parameters can be adjusted in certain ways to cause depression, and to recover
from depression (etc). So in that way, one might say that human minds may
become flawed, I suppose.
On the other hand, since we pretty much define "mind" based on human ones,
it's hard to say that they are flawed. If there was something "perfect"
(whatever that might be", then it might very well not be a mind.
I do believe that there is some mechanism to minds (or perhaps a variety of
them). One reason why I am interested in AI (perhaps this is very Cog. Sci.
of me, actually) is because I think perhaps it will help elucidate the ways
in which the human mind works, and thus increase our understanding of human
behaviour. I don't know; perhaps I am naive in that respect. At anyrate,
I do try to use the human mind as a model in at least some of what I am doing.
Just thought I'd throw in my two cents.
--
-- Chris. (cycy@isl1.ri.cmu.edu)
I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure
you realise that what you heard is not what I meant.
------------------------------
Date: 4 Oct 87 20:19:03 GMT
From: wcalvin@well.UUCP (William Calvin)
Reply-to: wcalvin@well.UUCP (William Calvin)
Subject: Re: Goal of AI: where are we going?
Making AI a real science suffers from the attitude of many of its founders:
they'd rather re-invent the wheel than "cheat" by looking at brain research.
While Minsky's SOCIETY OF MIND is very interesting, one gets the impression
that he hasn't looked at neurophysiology since the 1950s. Contrast that to
Braitenberg's little book VEHICLES (MIT Press 1984), which summarizes a lot
of ideas kicking around neurobiology at the simple circuit level.
The other thing strikingly missing, besides a working knowledge of
neurobiology beyond the Hubel-Wiesel level, is a knowledge of evolutionary
biology beyond the "survival of the fittest" level. Emergent properties are
a big aspect of complex systems, but one seldom hears much talk about them
in AI.
William H. Calvin
University of Washington NJ-15, Seattle WA 98195
------------------------------
Date: 6 Oct 87 18:23:31 GMT
From: bbn!uwmcsd1!uwm-cs!litow@cs.rochester.edu (Dr. B. Litow)
Subject: Re: Goal of AI: where are we going? (Where should we go...)
>
> The principal difficulty in cognitive science is that it is in its
> infancy. I think that psychology is today where physics was in
> Newton's time. And a LOT of "narrow minded" theories came and went in
> Newton's time. Including Newton's theories.
>
> Steve Frysinger
Newton's primary contribution in Principia is a method. The method has NOT
been modified at its core in the elapsed three centuries. It is still at
the basis of all western physical science. Newton understood its importance
as V.Arnold has pointed out in his book Geometric Methods in the Theory of
Ordinary Differential Equations (Springer). The method is very simple to
state: pose and solve differential equations for the phenomena. Prior to
anything else in western physics there is this method. In this respect all
of quantum mechanics is only a conservative (almost in the sense of logic)
extension of rational mechanics. Incidentally rational mechanics was not
developed explicitly by Newton. It is a product of the Enlightenment
researchers,e.g. the Bernoullis and especially Euler. Underlying the method
is something nameless which when it is finally investigated (the time is
approaching) will be a decisive element in actually showing what is really
conveyed by the adjective "western".
------------------------------
Date: 5 Oct 87 15:04:54 GMT
From: spf@moss.ATT.COM
Reply-to: spf@moss.UUCP (Steve Frysinger)
Subject: Re: Goal of AI: where are we going? (Where should we go...)
In article <493@vax1.UUCP> czhj@vax1.UUCP (Ted Inoue) writes:
}Some of you may remember my postings from last year where I expounded on the
}virtues of cognitive psychology. After investigating research in this field
}in more detail, I came up very disillusioned. Here is a field of study in
}which the soul purpose is to scientifically discover the nature of thought.
}Even with some very bright people working on these problems, I found that the
}research left me cold. Paper after paper describe isolated phenomena, then go
}on to present some absurdly narrow minded theory of how such phenomena could
}occur.
Perhaps you're right; there is not doubt that the system in question
is highly complex and interconnected.
However, the same claim can be made about the domain of physics. And
(in the west at least) research and progress in physics has been built
upon small pieces of the problem, complete with small theories (which
usually seemed incredibily naive when disproved). Now another
approach to physics is possible (see Kapra's "Tao of Physics"). It
would probably not be observational (which I require of any science)
but introspective instead. Me? I like both. When I do science, I
build up from measurable components, creating and discarding petty
theories along the way. When I do zen, it's another matter entirely
(no pun intended).
The principal difficulty in cognitive science is that it is in its
infancy. I think that psychology is today where physics was in
Newton's time. And a LOT of "narrow minded" theories came and went in
Newton's time. Including Newton's theories.
Steve Frysinger
------------------------------
End of AIList Digest
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