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AIList Digest Volume 7 Issue 016
AIList Digest Friday, 3 Jun 1988 Volume 7 : Issue 16
Today's Topics:
Queries:
inductive expert system tools
Response to: current connectionist literature, etcetera
Expert Systems Shells Info
Philosophy:
Artificial Intelligence Languages
Self Simulation
Free Will & Self Awareness
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Date: 31 May 88 12:54:06 GMT
From: mcvax!dnlunx!marlies@uunet.uu.net (Steenbergen M.E.van)
Subject: Wanted, information on inductive expert system tools.
Hello,
I am new to USENET. I am engaged in artificial intelligence research. At the
moment I am investigating the possibilities of inductive expert systems. In
the literature I have encountered the names of a number of (supposedly)
inductive expert system building tools: Logian, RuleMaster, KDS, TIMM,
Expert-Ease, Expert-Edge, VP-Expert. I would like to have more information
about these tools (articles about them or the names of dealers in Holland). I
would be very grateful to everyone sending me any information about these or
other inductive tools. Remarks of people who have worked with inductive expert
systems are also very welcome. Thanks!
Marlies
..!mcvax!dnlunx!marlies
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 88 03:34:49 CDT
From: lugowski@resbld.csc.ti.com
Subject: current connectionist literature, etcetera
Responding to John Nagle's CURRENT connectionist literature inquiry:
In my opinion, there is no good comprehensive book on current
connectionist thinking. For one thing, folks are too busy going to
conferences. For another, everyone has their own little garden to
tend. Recent book content of interest includes "Neural Darwinism" (to
judge from preprints) as well as the commentaries by Jim Anderson in
"Neuroscience", a recent compendium of not-so-recent papers. You
don't want to miss a not-yet-out MIT/Bradford Books book, Pentti
Kanerva's 1984 thesis (CSLI 84-7), if you haven't read it yet. Other
than that, I'd repeat the obligatory advice: monitor technical
reports, the journals "Nature" and "Neural Networks" and the two
connectionist mailing lists. To apply for subscription to those
lists, send to:
connectionists-request@q.cs.cmu.edu (sparsely firing connectionists)
neuron-digest-request@csc.ti.com (everyone, sparse and otherwise)
As for categorizing work, anything small-grained, bottom up and
parallel probably can pass for connectionist. It's not the formalism,
it's the claim, really: One must make massively parallel claims
pertaining to massive parallelism. (Smirk, lest I get crucified.)
Simulated annealing is "very connectionism". Some of the nicest
connectionist work of late (Durbin & Willsaw, Cambridge, also stuff
out of Los Alamos) has at least references to simulated annealing as
benchmark. The trick one would like to see done is casting simulated
annelaing as a localized computation *without* the closed-form cost
function or globally computed energy -- everything strictly "grassroots".
As for tensor calculus, the very idea appears contra connectionism,
I hold with those who would like to see discrete, adpative and local
formalisms take over the domains historically ceded to 19th century's
closed-form mathematical analysis and its applications. Tensor
calculus? Sure, but check them determinants at the bar, pardner...
[Above opinions are strictly mine.]
-- Marek Lugowski
lugowski@resbld.csc.ti.com
lugowski@ngstl1.ti.com
marek@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 88 13:14:16 GMT
From: uh2@psuvm.bitnet (Lee Sailer)
Subject: Expert Systems Shells Info wanted
Here's you chance to help out some poor folk at a small college...8-)
I have two students who want to learn about expert systems. One wants
to build a system that answers micro-economics questions---"The banana crop
fails, what happens to the price of apples?"---and the other will probably
do something in manufacturing.
I'm the "advisor". I have lots of book knowledge about ES, but we don't have
any software here at this point. I need pointers to useful systems and
advice. We have msdos machines and Macintoshes, plus an odd Unix box or two,
and of course the ever popular IBM mainframe.
What we don't have is much money.
Advice gratefully accepted.
------------------------------
Date: 31 May 88 16:22:26 GMT
From: elk@cblpn.att.com (Edwin King)
Reply-to: elk@cblpn.att.com (55214-Edwin King)
Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence Languages
>Can anyone suggest a list of features which a programming
>language must have which would qualify it as an "artificial intelligence
>language" ?
I realize this may not exactly jive with the current list of "AI languages"
but, in my opinion there are only a couple of features a language
must have to be of any real use for AI. They are
1) True linked list capability. Sure, there are ways
to fake this, but the headaches are enormous. But,
do be aware that as long as you can use pointers
and such to create this effect, I will include it
on the list. Structure references are helpful
as well (such as struct in C, or record in PASCAL).
I don't think the actual manipulations of these lists
have to be built-in since building a library for that
purpose is easy enough that most folks have probably
already done it.
2) For some (not all) AI fields easy access to the
hardware itself it nice (like robotic and the like).
3) Easy to use string functions, or a library to do such.
So, by this criteria, all the commonly held "AI languages" would fit
(like PROLOG, LISP, POP, et cetera ad nauseum). But, I really think
a few others (C, Pascal, ADA, Bliss--though that may be stretching a bit,
and definitely ASSEMBLY) can also be used effectively given just a little
overhead to library building.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Ed King | Have we been here before or are we yet to come? ~
~ elk@cblpn.ATT.COM | -- Sarah Jane Smith ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 88 16:55:10 GMT
From: sdcrdcf!csun!sdsu!caasi@hplabs.hp.com (Richard Caasi)
Subject: Re: Self Simulation
In article <33245@linus.UUCP> writes:
>I was captured by the notion of self-simulation, and started day-dreaming,
>imagining myself as an actor inside a simulation. I found that, as the
>director of the day-dream, I had to delegate free will to my simulated
>self. The movie free-runs, sans script. It was just like being asleep.
>
>So, perhaps a robot who engages in self-simulation is merely dreaming
>about itself. That's not so hard. I do it all the time.
>
>--Barry Kort
Wasn't it Chuang-Tzu who wrote: Once I dreamt I was a butterfly.
After I awoke, I didn't know if I was a man dreaming about being
a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming about being a man.
------------------------------
Date: 31 May 88 16:32:12 GMT
From: umix!umich!eecs.umich.edu!itivax!dhw@uunet.UU.NET (David H.
West)
Subject: Re: AIList Digest V7 #4 [bwk@mitre-bedford.arpa: Re: Free
Will & Self Awareness]
In article <8805250055.AA01059@BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU>, bwk@mitre-bedford.arpa
(Barry W. Kort) writes:
> [...] I can use my imagination to conceive a course
> of action which increases both of our utility functions. Free will
> empowers me to choose a Win-Win alternative. Without free will, I am
> predestined to engage in acts that hurt others. Since I disvalue hurting
> others, I thank God that I am endowed with free will.
>
> Is there a flaw in the above line of reasoning? If so, I would be
> grateful to someone for pointing it out to me.
Whether there is a flaw depends on what one supposes the
conclusion(s) to be ;-)
Robert Axelrod (in _The Evolution of Cooperation_) has shown by
simulation that an evolutionary system containing only rather simple
automata can learn to play Prisoners' Dilemma with a win-win
(actually TFT, which is win-win against another TFT) strategy.
In this particular instance it is the system that learns, rather
than individuals, which are too transient.
Do you wish to ascribe free will to such a (deterministic but
stochastically driven) system?
David West dhw%iti@umix.cc.umich.edu
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End of AIList Digest
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