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AIList Digest Volume 5 Issue 283
AIList Digest Tuesday, 15 Dec 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 283
Today's Topics:
Queries - Statistics on AI Programmers & KR References &
Cognitive Science Programs,
AI Tools - Smalltalk for the MAC & RACTER & LISP vs. PROLOG &
Common Lisp Portability,
Law - Expert System Liability,
Philosophy - The Role of Biological Models in AI
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Date: 13 Dec 87 13:30:14 GMT
From: caip.rutgers.edu!anar@rutgers.edu (Anar Shah)
Subject: Statistics on AI programmers requested
I am looking for articles/statistics on the availability of AI
programmers - the demand vs the supply. Any information on this
subject will be a great help.
Anar Shah
------------------------------
Date: 11 Dec 87 11:54:08 GMT
From: mcvax!lifia!gb@uunet.UU.NET (Guilherme Bittencourt)
Reply-to: mcvax!lifia!gb@uunet.UU.NET (Guilherme Bittencourt)
Subject: References wanted
I am very interested in recent publications concerning
Knowledge Representation tutorials or surveys, and papers
comparing different techniques of Knowledge Representation.
If someone knows about or has published such papers, I'd be
very pleased if she/he could contact me, or send me her/his papers
and/or any pointer to such publications.
Besides being useful for my research these papers will be
included to the second version of a bibliography on Expert and
Knowledge-Based Systems. The first version is just out as an
internal lab. report and is available (until the requests do not
oversize our supply !)
Thank you for your help.
Guilherme
--
Guilherme BITTENCOURT +-----+ gb@lifia.imag.fr
L.I.F.I.A. | <0> |
46, Avenue Felix Viallet +-----+
38031 GRENOBLE Cedex (33) 76574668
------------------------------
Date: 10 Dec 87 20:55:11 GMT
From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utai!tjhorton@rutger
s.edu (Timothy J. Horton)
Subject: Cognitive Science programs (once and for all)
Do you have info about cognitive science programs?
ie. interdisciplinary programs based on several of
computersci / psychology / neurosci / linguistics / even philosophy / etc
Please drop me a few lines or pointers to info. I will summarize and post.
I have read of a Cognitive Science Society. Do they have a published list
of programs somewhere? If so, where?
>From what I understand, perhaps not accurately (please clarify):
MIT:
department of Brain and Cognitive Science
Brown:
department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science
Stanford:
Graduate Program in Cognitive Science
Psychology (organizing dept), Linguistics, Computer Science, Philosophy
UCSD:
interdisciplinary PhD in Cognitive Science exists
undergraduate program in Cog Sci currently offered by psychology
strengths in psychology, connectionism (though fading?), neurosci, linguistics
a real dept of Cognitive Science is in the works, perhaps for 88/89
UC Berkley:
Cognitive Science Program
focus on linguistics
Michigan:
defunct Program in Communications Sciences
Toronto:
Undergraduate Major in Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence
Princeton:
program of some sort?
Edinburgh:
department of Cognitive Science (formerly School of Epistemics)
focus on linguistics
Sussex:
School of Cognitive Science
--
Timothy J Horton (416) 979-3109 tjhorton@ai.toronto.edu (CSnet,UUCP,Bitnet)
Dept of Computer Science tjhorton@ai.toronto (other Bitnet)
University of Toronto, tjhorton@ai.toronto.cdn (EAN X.400)
Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 {seismo,watmath}!ai.toronto.edu!tjhorton
------------------------------
Date: 11 Dec 87 14:22:10 GMT
From: sunybcs!rapaport@ames.arpa (William J. Rapaport)
Subject: Re: Cognitive Science programs (once and for all)
In article <4186@utai.UUCP> tjhorton@ai.toronto.edu (Timothy J. Horton) writes:
>Do you have info about cognitive science programs?
State University of New York at Buffalo has several active cognitive science
programs. What follows is a slightly outdated on-line information
sheet on two of them. The newest is the SUNY Buffalo Graduate Studies
and Research Initiative in Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, whose
Steering Committee is currently planning the establishment of a Cog and
Ling Sci Center and running a colloquium series. For more information,
please contact me. In addition, let me know if you wish to be on my
on-line mailing list for colloquium announcements.
William J. Rapaport
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Co-Director, Graduate Group in Cognitive Science
Interim Director, GSRI in Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences
Dept. of Computer Science||internet: rapaport@cs.buffalo.edu
SUNY Buffalo ||bitnet: rapaport@sunybcs.bitnet
Buffalo, NY 14260 ||uucp: {ames,boulder,decvax,rutgers}!sunybcs!rapaport
(716) 636-3193, 3180 ||
[Write to the author if you need the full message. -- KIL]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 87 11:45 EDT
From: TAM%MCOIARC.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Subject: Smalltalk for the MAC
In response to Robert Stanley's mention of Smalltalk for the MAC:
The Smalltalk version available from APDA is a very poor implementation.
I found that it frequently overwrite the whole screen when using
standard graphics. Parc Place Systems has a version now for the MAC II
(which I have recently ordered), for the MAC SE, and the MAC Plus.
These versions are standard Smalltalk-80 (Parc Place is a division of
Xerox Corp).
The manual shipped with Apples Smalltalk is very bad. You must be
very effient with SMalltalk-80 before using it.
Smalltalk from Apple cost $75.00. Smalltalk-80 from Parc Place
is $1000 for the MAC SE and Plus, and $1295.00 for the MAC II, but
Parc Place offers a 90% educational discount making all the systems
practically the same price.
My opinion is get the real thing and buy Parc Place's Smalltalk.
------------------------------
Date: 13 Dec 87 01:00:41 GMT
From: cbmvax!swatsun!hirai@uunet.uu.net (Eiji "A.G." Hirai)
Subject: Re: Request for RACTER
In article <8712041829.AA19308@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> ST502042@BROWNVM.BITNET
(Michael Nosal) writes:
> ...
>m on the subject, if anyone knows of other 'Eliza-like' AI programs out there,
>please let me know.
GNU Emacs has a bery primitive Eliza-like (un-AI like) lisp program
called 'doctor'. Also check out 'flames' too, which reponds to your
efforts at communicating with it through flames. Very sociable. :-)
> Michael Nosal (please respond to this account if possible)
-a.g. hirai
--
Eiji "A.G." Hirai @ Swarthmore College, Swarthmore PA 19081 | Tel. 215-543-9855
UUCP: {rutgers, ihnp4, cbosgd}!bpa!swatsun!hirai | "All Cretans are liars."
Bitnet: vu-vlsi!swatsun!hirai@psuvax1.bitnet | -Epimenides
Internet: bpa!swatsun!hirai@rutgers.edu | of Cnossus, Crete
------------------------------
Date: 14 Dec 87 17:56:27 GMT
From: umix!umich!eecs.umich.edu!dwt@uunet.UU.NET (David West)
Reply-to: umix!umich!eecs.umich.edu!dwt@uunet.UU.NET (David West)
Subject: Re: Expert System references...
In article <8712100816.AA09612@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> WURST@UCONNVM.BITNET writes:
>
> I am a graduate student in Computer Science [...]
> I plan to write the system twice,
> once in LISP, and once in PROLOG, and then compare the relative
> merits of each language for expert systems.
> Can anyone suggest some references to get me started?
Unless you are already proficient in both languages, what you are likely to
end up comparing is your relative understanding of the two languages. For
this reason I think that your first reference to read should be Richard
O'Keefe's article "Prolog and LISP Compared?" in SIGPLAN Notices, about 1984.
This is a critique of an article by someone else in which the someone else
fell into precisely the above-mentioned trap.
(That title and date are approximate, but close.)
David West dwt@zippy.eecs.umich.edu
------------------------------
Date: 10 Dec 87 08:43:22 est
From: Walter Hamscher <hamscher@ht.ai.mit.edu>
Subject: Common Lisp lacks portability (105 lines)
It seems to me that your complaint is not about Steele & the
rest of the committee's unwillingness to overconstrain the
language in what is still a relatively unexplored area, but
rather with implementors who chose to interpret the verb
`ignore' in the sense of ``the compiler or interpreter can
pretend it aint there'' instead of ``the compiler doesn't have
to generate special code for it''. Sort of like the difference
between (declare (ignore x)) and (ignore x), if you catch my
drift. In any case, since you have obviously thought some
about this problem perhaps you could suggest which of the three
examples you gave were the `right' ones and what the spec should
have been said, keeping in mind the purpose of the definition
described so succinctly in the first three pages of CLtL.
Walter Hamscher
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 87 14:11:42 EST
From: "Christopher M. Maeda" <MAEDA@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: AIList V5 #281 - Common Lisp Portability, Chess
Reply to Ritchey Ruff on type declarations:
I don't see why you are mad at Steele for saying that compilers and
interpreters can ignore declarations. For example, if you type the
following definition,
(defun foo (x)
(declare (type x integer))
...)
and you always pass integers as arguments to foo, what difference does
it make (aside from performance) if the lisp system does full type
checking or just assumes it's an integer?
From reading your message, I think it is the buggy SLOOP macro
that you should be flaming at. You said you typed the folowing
definition:
(defun tst (m n)
(sloop for i from m to n
collecting i))
Why in the world would sloop declare m and n to be of type integer
when there is no such information from the programmer? That, and the
fact that you gave tst floating point arguments when you knew they
were declared as fixnums, is what is causing your problems.
Chris Maeda
------------------------------
Date: Thu 10 Dec 87 10:27:39-PST
From: George S. Cole <GCOLE@Sushi.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: Expert System Liability
I have researched this area and a paper is forthcoming -- as soon as the
USC Computer/Law Journal editorial staff are ready -- on "Tort Liability for
Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems". The trite answer is yes, there can
be a suit and EVERYBODY INVOLVED will be named -- because the plaintiff's
lawyer will realize that the law does not clearly know who is liable (including
the plaintiff).
A short answer is to cite the Restatement of Torts, 2nd, Section 552:
"Information Negligently Supplied for the Guidance of Others:
one who, in the course of his business, profession, or employment, or in
any other transaction in which he has a pecuniary interest, supplies false
information for the guidance of others in their business transactions, is
subject to liability for pecuniary loss caused to them by their justifiable
reliance upon the information, if he fails to exercise reasonable care or
competence in obtaining or communicating the information".
This section was cited without success in Black, Jackson and Simmons Insurance
Brokerage, Inc. v. IBM, 440 N.E. 2d 282, 109 Ill. App. 132 (1982). The phrase
"in the course of his business" was strictly construed to prevent liability
under this cause of action (there were others, including warranty) as the
court noted that the defendant had sold both hardware and software to allow
the firm to process information. But in Independant School District No. 454,
Fairmont, Minnesota v. Statistical Tabulating Corporation, 359 F. Supp. 1095
(N.D. Ill, 1973) the court permitted a negligence action to be brought against
the third-party statistical bureau whose miscalculations had led to the
under-insurance of a school which had then burned down. The court stated:
"[O]ne may be liable to another for providing inaccurate information which
was relied upon and caused economic loss, although there was no direct
contractual relationship between the parties...The duty to do work reasonably
and in a workmanlike manner has always been imposed by law..." Factors the
court suggested to consider included (1) the existence, if any, of a guarantee
of correctness; (2) the defendant's knowledge that the plaintiff would rely
upon the information; (3) the restriction of potential liability to a small
group; (4) the absence of proof of any correction once found being delivered
to the plaintiff; (5) the undesirability of requiring an innocent party to
carry the burden of another's professional mistakes; and (6) the promotion
of cautionary techniques among the potential defendants for the protection
of all potential plaintiffs.
Did the ES indeed make a mistake? Suppose Joe has said he plans to
invest for 15 years -- too short for real estate, too long for bonds, and
in that light the "Black Monday" might be seen as a temporary aberration.
(I.e. Joe caused the harm by selling out at the bottom rather than holding
on for the 15 years as planned.)
Can the experts hide behind the company? Those who are professionals
(which is a legal phrase for "holders of a semi-monopoly") probably cannot be
fully shielded; the rest may have to seek indemnity from their corporation.
It will depend in part on their employment contract, or lack thereof.
Can the knowledge engineers be found liable if their mistake led to
this? What sort of mistake? A standard programming flaw is not the same as
a design flaw. What if the mistake lies at the boundary -- who is responsible
for realizing that the computer has to have rules for assessing "market
psychology" that will quantitatively assess the subtle dynamics of what
the current "feel" for the market is? Did the domain experts learn that the
computer was going to do more than crunch numbers?
This is both a nascent and a complex legal area. My hope is that a
number of the AI and ES companies realize the potential exposure and that the
evolution of the law can be influenced by their behavior -- and begin to
plan defensively. It is a bit more expensive initially, affecting immediate
profits; but it can provide tremendous savings both for the firm and for the
industry over the longer run.
George S. Cole, Esq.
793 Nash Av.
Menlo Park, CA 94025
GCole@Sushi.stanford.edu (until it goes away)
------------------------------
Date: 10 Dec 87 02:57:50 GMT
From: ece-csc!ncrcae!gollum!rolandi@mcnc.org (rolandi)
Subject: the role of biological models in ai
Marty!
Sorry about our previous misunderstanding. But regarding your reply ...
> You know perfectly well that, as a technology
> matures, it stops modeling its techniques on "natural processors" and
> develops artificial substitutes that were previously unknown. You
> don't fly by flapping wings, your car doesn't propel itself with legs,
> and your air conditioner sweats as a result of cooling, not the other
> way around. We first learn from natural processors, and then we
> progress by inventing artificial processors.
You make a good point here but, in a way, your examples labor against the
interest of your argument. According to some AI theorists, (see Schank,
R.C., (1984) The Cognitive Computer. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley)
AI is "an investigation into human understanding through which we learn
...about the complexities of our own intelligence." Thus, at least for
some AI researchers, the automation of intelligent behavior is secondary
to the expansion and formalization of our self-understanding. This is
assumed to be the result of creating computational "accounts" of (typically
intellectual) behavior. Researchers write programs which display the
performance characteristics of humans within some given domain. The
efficacy of a program is a function of the similarity of its performance
to the human performance after which it was modeled. Thus AI programs are
(often) created in order to "explain" the processes that they model.
Although one of your examples provides an instance of a machine that employs
principles derived from studying natural flight, (airplanes) I don't
think many people would argue that the airplane was invented in order to
"explain" flight. Of your other examples, I do not think that the workings
of an automobile have ever been thought to provide insights into the nature
of human locomotion. Nor do I believe that the "sweat" of an air conditioner
is in any meaningful way related to perspiration in humans.
-w.rolandi
ncrcae!gollum!rolandi
Look Boss, DisClaim! DisClaim!
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End of AIList Digest
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