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Differing Methodological Perspectives in Artificial Intelligence Research
Hall, Rogers P., Kibler, Dennis F.
A variety of proposals for preferred methodological approaches has been advanced in the recent artificial intelligence (AI) literature. Rather than advocating a particular approach, this article attempts to explain the apparent confusion of efforts in the field in terms of differences among underlying methodological perspectives held by practicing researchers. The article presents a review of such perspectives discussed in the existing literature and then considers a descriptive and relatively specific typology of these differing research perspectives. It is argued that researchers should make their methodological orientations explicit when communicating research results, to increase both the quality of research reports and their comprehensibility for other participants in the field. For a reader of the AI literature, an understanding of the various methodological perspectives will be of immediate benefit, giving a framework for understanding and evaluating research reports. In addition, explicit attention to methodological commitments might be a step towards providing a coherent intellectual structure that can be more easily assimilated by newcomers to the field.
Review of "Report on the 1984 Distributed Artificial Intelligence Workshop
The fifth Distributed Artificial Intelligence Workshop was held at the Schlumberger-Doll Research Laboratory from October 14 to 17, 1984. It was attended by 20 participants from academic and industrial institutions. As in the past, this workshop was designed as an informal meeting. It included brief research reports from individual groups along with general discussion of questions of common interest. This report summarizes the general discussion and contains summaries of group presentations that have been contributed by individual speakers.
Representativeness and Uncertainty in Classification Schemes
Cohen, Paul R., Davis, Alvah, Day, David, Greenberg, Michael, Kjeldsen, Rick, Lander, Susan, Loiselle, Cynthia
The choice of implication as a representation for empirical associations and for deduction as a model of inference requires a mechanism extraneous to deduction to manage uncertainty associated with inference. Consequently, the interpretation of representations of uncertainty is unclear. Representativeness, or degree of fit, is proposed as an interpretation of degree of belief for classification tasks. The calculation of representativeness depends on the nature of the associations between evidence and conclusions. Patterns of associations are characterized as endorsements of conclusions. We discuss an expert system that uses endorsements to control the search for the most representative conclusion, given evidence.
Letters to the Editor
Mostow, Jack, Katke, William, Partridge, Derek, Koton, Phyllis, Estrin, Deborah, Gray, Sharon, Ladin, Rivka, Eisenberg, Mike, Duffy, Gavin, Dorr, Bonnie, Batali, John, Levitt, David, Shirley, Mark, Giansiracusa, Robert, Montalvo, Fanya, Pitman, Kent, Golden, Ellen, Stone, Bob
And even if verification to be accommodated within the SPIV paradigm. But until were possible it would not contribute very much to the such time as we find these learning algorithms (and I development of production software. Hence "verifiability don't think that many would argue that such algorithms must not be allowed to overshadow reliability. Scientists will be available in the foreseeable future) we must face should not confuse mathematical models with reality." the prospect of systems that will need to be modified, in AI is perhaps not so special, it is rather an extreme nontrivial ways, throughout their useful lives. Thus incremental and thus certain of its characteristics are more obvious development will be a constant feature of such than in conventional software applications. Thus the SPIV software and if it is not fully automatic then it will be part methodology may be inappropriate for an even larger class of the human maintenance of the system. I am, of course, of problems than those of AI. not suggesting that the products of say architectural design I have raised all these points not to try to deny the (i.e., buildings) will need a learning capability. Nevertheless, worth of Mostow's ideas and issues concerning the design a final fixed design, that remains "optimal" in a process, but to make the case that such endeavors should dynamically changing world, is a rare event.The similarity also be pursued within a fundamentally incremental and between AI system development and the design of more evolutionary framework for design. The potential of the concrete objects is still present, but it is, in some respects, RUDE paradigm is deserving of more attention than it is rather tenuous I admit.
The History of Artificial Intelligence at Rutgers
The founding of a new college at Rutgers in 1969 became the occasion for building a strong computer science presence in the University. Livingston College thus provided the home for the newly organized Department of Computer Science (DCS) and for the beginning of computer science research at Rutgers.
Artificial Intelligence at MITRE
The MITRE Corporation is a scientific and technical an acronym for Knowledge-Based System. Subsequently, organization engaged in system engineering activities, Rome Air Development Center took over support of the principally in support of the United States Air Force and project and continues to fund part of our AI research effort. MITRE is a special kind of engineering MITRE's current research is summarized below. The corporation is a Federal Contract Bedford center is supported by 15 Symbolics Lisp machines Research Center, a designation covering the handful netted to two Vax-780 file servers, while the Washington of independent institutions that perform governmentsponsored center is supported by both a classified and an unclassified research. It is an independent, nonprofit corporation facility, with 2 Lambdas and 2 Symbolics Lisp machines designed and m.anagcd to provide long-term assistance respectively netted to Vax-780 file servers.
Evolving Systems of Knowledge
The enterprise of developing knowledge-based systems is currently witnessing great growth in popularity. The central unity of many such programs is that they interpret knowledge that is explicitly encoded as rules. While rule-based programming comes with certain clear pay-offs, further fundamental advances in research are needed to extend the scope of tasks that can be adequately represented in this fashion. This article is a statement of personal perspective by a researcher interested in fundamental issues in the symbolic representation and organization ok knowledge.
Starting a Knowledge Engineering Project: A Step-By-Step Approach
Freiling, Michael, Alexande, Jim, Messick, Steve, Rehfuss, Stefe, Shulman, Sherri
Getting started on a new knowledge engineering project is a difficult and challenging task, even for those who have done it before. For those who haven't, the task can often prove impossible. One reason is that the requirements-oriented methods and intuitions learned in the development of other types of software do not carry over well to the knowledge engineering task. Another reason is that methodologies for developing expert systems by extracting, representing, and manipulating an expert's knowledge have been slow in coming. At Tektronix, we have been using step-by-step approach to prototyping expert systems for over two years now. The primary features of this approach are that it gives software engineers who do not know knowledge engineering an easy place to start, and that it proceeds in a step-by-step fashion from initiation to implementation without inducing conceptual bottlenecks into the development process. This methodology has helped us collect the knowledge necessary to implement several prototype knowledge-based systems, including a troubleshooting assistant for the Tektronix FG-502 function generator and an operator's assistant for a wave solder machine.
I Lied About the Trees, Or, Defaults and Definitions in Knowledge Representation
Over the past few years, the notion of a "prototype" (e.g., TYPICAL-ELEPHANT) seems to have caught on securely in knowledge representation research. Along with a way to specify default properties for instances of a description, proto-representations allow overriding, or "canceling" of properties that don't apply in particular cases. This supposedly makes representing exceptions ( three-legged elephants and the like ) easy; but, alas, it makes one crucial type of representation impossible-that of composite descriptions whose meanings are functions of the structure and interrelation of their parts. This article explores this and other ramifications of the emphasis on default properties and "typical" objects.
The Dark Ages of AI: A Panel Discussion at AAAI-84
McDermott, Drew, Waldrop, M. Mitchell, Chandrasekaran, B., McDermott, John, Schank, Roger
The fact was there were a lot of failures. There I have been assigned the role of survivalist. First I want to were overruns and systems delivered past schedule. This ask, "Has AI paid its way?"... Or to put it another way, is certainly not unique to Naval Electronic System Command. "Have we earned our keep?" I have three answers to that: The most would be systems being acquired for the Yes, yes, and yes.