This book review examines Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1995, 932 pp., $62.90, ISBN 0-13-103805-2.

The first session aimed to set the component being tested. The stage for the day's discussion by focusing variation in all three of these contexts on the issues surrounding the will lead to different types of and Verification of Knowledge-use of formal specification techniques The first paper, by Formal Specifications to Design Intelligence (AAAI-94) in Seattle, Lance Miller of SAIC, was entitled Verifiable Hybrid KBS" by Rose Gamble, Washington, marked the seventh This paper provided a with its specification, and (2) the The 1994 workshop was significant basis for the comparison of validation refinement of formal specifications in that there was a definitive move in and verification techniques to for their implementation. O'Leary, from the lows the possibility of constraining techniques for validating certain University of Southern California, the experts' choices to ensure that properties of KBSs. A paper by presented a paper on the relationship any new knowledge added is valid Alun Preece, Cliff Gossner, and T. between errors and size in KBSs. This and that the knowledge base structure Radhakrishnan (all from the University paper is among the first to address ensures the knowledge is of Aberdeen, Scotland) considered this important issue.

Several of the workshops have led to discourse? At what levels of the art in the field (Dale et al. 1992; generation is information processed on Natural Language Paris, Swartout, and Mann 1991; How can we generate to 24 June 1994 at the Nonantum The goal of this latest workshop multilingual texts efficiently? Inn on the seacoast in Kennebunkport, was to introduce new, cutting-edge The topics presented at the workshop Maine. Two invited speakers described subtopics such as evaluation, casual site contributed greatly to their perspectives on two areas outside explanation generation, and summarization the success of the workshop in stimulating the field that might become an occur with increasing frequency the exchange of ideas. Pustejovsky (Brandeis University) presented Different generator designers make that any individual generation his views on the richness of different choices, and the resulting project should define--in its own what can be encoded in what he calls systems are hard to compare.

My collaborators and I have recently reported in domain science journals several human-computer discoveries in biology, chemistry, and physics. One might ask what accounts for these findings, for example, whether they share a common pattern. My conclusion is that each finding involves a new representation of the scientific task: The problem spaces searched were unlike previous task problem spaces. Such new representations need not be wholly new to the history of science; rather, they can draw on useful representational pieces from elsewhere in natural or computer science. This account contrasts with earlier explanations of machine discovery based on the expert system view. My analysis also suggests a broader potential role for (AI) computer scientists in the practice of natural science.

The Swiss Bank, one of the largest A team that includes AI Ware (Cleveland, develop a new computer telephone banks based in Switzerland, has Ohio), a vendor of intelligent integration solution, based on speech reached an agreement with virtual systems for design and manufacturing recognition for the PC. Users will be reality tool developer Sense8 (Mill applications, has been awarded a $3.8 Valley, Calif.) to integrate Sense8's able to access important information million grant by the National Institute The GUI will allow users to access and of location. Gensym (Cambridge, Mass.), supplier Calif.) has been awarded a $1 million with self-improving capabilities Contact locations, Motorola plans to Communications Corp. (Mountain Lionheart Publishing Inc., 2555 deploy virtual worlds for on-site training View, Calif.), a provider of open software Cumberland Parkway, Suite 299, at plants around the world. A computer-based vision system has Engine it its Netscape servers. Topic been developed that reportedly can Mitek Systems (San Diego, Calif.), a Agents allow users and online identify faces as accurately as the manufacturer of advanced character providers to filter incoming information human eye, even to the point of seeing recognition products for intelligent against interest profiles and send past most disguises.

The new qualitative values that represent using currents and voltages.

Systems (QR '94) was held on 7-10 June A hot issue in cognitive modeling We received 53 submissions and is spatial and diagrammatic reasoning. The core issues of qualitative reasoning Hari Narayanan and his colleagues The eighth workshop was in Nara, included qualitative and (Advanced Research Laboratory, Japan, celebrating the community's causal modeling of the world, automated Hitachi Ltd.) exploited an architecture escape from a simple flip-flop behavior modeling, and qualitative of qualitative visual reasoning and its voyage to a more complex simulation. Interestingly, this transition attracted the attention of many participants. In fact, constructing a component-based sophistication to base qualitative several demonstrations, including model for the input-document handler reasoning on a firm ground. University) presented activity analysis, model abstraction that makes test Iwasaki and Farquhar and will be demonstrating how qualitative generation feasible for continuous held in Monterey, California.

How can an artificial agent react to a situation after performing the correct amount of thinking? My Ph.D. dissertation (Zilberstein 1993)2 presents a theoretical framework and a programming paradigm that provide an answer to this question.

Moore's technique employs a conventional

In its early stages, the field of AI had as its main goal the invention of computer programs having the general problem-solving abilities of humans. Along the way, a major shift of emphasis developed from general-purpose programs toward performance programs, ones whose competence was highly specialized and limited to particular areas of expertise. In this article, I claim that AI is now at the beginning of another transition, one that will reinvigorate efforts to build programs of general, humanlike competence. These programs will use specialized performance programs as tools, much like humans do.