(Bledsoe 1976). We didn't know we were being We spent a lot of time reading by ourselves, because most of the time the other grades were having their classes. But we DID learn, and had some pretty died on 4 October 1995 of ALS, good teachers (Bledsoe 1976). Woody was one of the and recalls spending "hours just roaming founders of AI, making early contributions in around, sometimes working mathematics pattern recognition and automated reasoning. He continued to make significant contributions When Woody was 12, his father died. It was to AI throughout his long career. His a devastating blow both emotionally and legacy consists not only of his scientific work financially. As Woody recalled, "We were poor but also of several generations of scientists before, but after papa died in January 1934, who learned from Woody the joy of scientific things got worse" (Bledsoe 1976). He and the research and the way to go about it. Woody's rest of his brothers and sisters worked dreary enthusiasm, his perpetual sense of optimism, 10-hour days to make ends meet. He to humanity offered those who knew him the found work in north Texas driving a tractor all hope and comfort that truly good and great night. After a month, he hopped a freight men do exist. He graduated little farm near Maysville, Oklahoma. He moved to Oklahoma to try his took a job as a dishwasher, working 12-hour luck at farming. Woody was the fourth child days 7 days a week. In for his heroic activities in arranging the April, the restaurant owner forced him back transportation of troops across the Rhine into working 12-hour days, which was too in March, 1945. He left the Rhine bridges except the one at Remagen university without saying goodbye and had been destroyed by the retreating German joined the United States Army. Patton's Third Army decided to cross the Rhine by boats near Frankfurt rather than suffer the delay of waiting for bridge construction. Therefore the went to Officer's Candidate School (OCS) Army Corps of Engineers hauled naval By the time he in 1942, he had been promoted to second landing craft (designed for beach landings) lieutenant. While at OCS, Woody had an by truck across Europe to ferry experience that had a profound effect on him: troops across the Rhine. Bledsoe, by then an Army captain, recalls that there was Another experience at OCS at Fort only light enemy fire during the crossing; Belvoir left a lasting impression on me. His first "research" was experimenting army truck. The simple idea opened the flap and said, "Get out here. of backing the trucks into the water, Let's do the map reading." He would later father a to get on with the work, to finish the son, Greg, born in March 1947. It taught me that "if we have to had two more children, Pam and Lance.

Randy Davis announced the appointment of six new program managers at ARPA. At IJCAI-95, Randall Davis assumed the office of president of the American For many attending the Fourteenth for consideration this year," noted Association for Artificial Intelligence International Joint Conference on Ray Perrault of SRI International, (AAAI). Davis is a professor of Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-95), the chair of the conference. "This is more electrical engineering and computer most difficult problem was choosing than at IJCAI-93 and at recent science and associate director of the which session to attend in the rich, National Conferences on AI in the AI Lab at the Massachusetts Institute varied program. Davis succeeds data-mining application from rate was under 25 percent, showing Barbara Grosz, Gordon McKay professor the U.S. Department of the Treasury that there is a great deal of work of computer science in the Division that identifies potential money laundering going on, and the scientific standard of Applied Sciences at Harvard to a small mobile LEG0 robot of IJCAI matches or exceeds that of University.

Daewoo Heavy Industries, in conjunction with the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, integrated applicability and limitations of various five separate schedulers based on different several papers from the AI techniques. IAAI has been held annually that are addressed at the conference. Mita Industrial Co., Ltd., said Japan's troubleshooting expert system proceedings were published in book Seventeen applications represent this has been supplied as an embedded form through 1992. Since 1993, a year's award winners: 11 were from component of its photocopiers conference proceedings volume has the United States, 4 from the Pacific since April 1994. It uses new reasoning been published, and selected papers Rim, 1 from Europe, and 1 from the methods based on virtual cases have been republished as articles in Middle East.

Prizes were awarded to students to encourage improved research. Michel Wermelinger, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, was the winner of the best paper award for his work "Basic Conceptual Structure Theory," which provided a significant In "Representations Technology, Bangkok, Thailand, won Papers were presented by a number interest in the use of conceptual he Second International Conference (ICCS'94) was held at the of individuals and groups from graphs. The funds were made available University of Maryland, College several countries on the development through a grant from the American Park, Maryland, on August 16 to 20. and use of the conceptual Association for Artificial Intelligence The conference marked the tenth graph representational language. Sponsors included the University of Graph Workbench," chaired by Gerard vice-president of academic affairs, Paradigm Development Corp. in Urbana, Illinois, was the second She received her Ph.D. from the introduction, "Aristotelian and

Simmons's dream was that a person could have "a conversation with a book": The computer would read the book, and then the user at that time. William James' could have a conversation with the born in Quincy, Massachusetts, Principles of Psychology seemed to He married me to be a highwater mark for answered from the computer's understanding Patricia Enderson in 1950, and they psychologists who were interested of the book. He investigated raised five children. The fact such as encyclopedia articles; produced in 1954 from the University of that the whole current of psychology higher-level grammars for Southern California. His dissertation has turned to the more expository text; and wrote programs was entitled "The Prediction of Accident rewarding (but to me less inspiring) that could summarize such text. Rates from Basic Design Features study of more easily He later became interested in logic of USAF Aircraft."

He knew the challenges opinion, as one of the premier natural language were great and would require the research groups in the world. He gave efforts of many people. He had a genius for one of us (Barbara Grosz) her first AI job, even bringing these people together. In doing so, he took a of people who had known Don over the risk of a magnitude that she fully appreciated years to send us reminiscences. Although only years later when she herself was hiring each person's story differed, a striking commonality research associates.

We recommend doesn't carry the day. The robot swallow something that's not particularly that those inclined to study must be able to use Q to arrive at its savory: a contradiction.

AAAI News the edge of technology now, but we'll be at the point where we can Terry Weymouth of The University of Michigan was cochair and ringmaster for the performances. Grosz, Gordon conferences carried on with quiet the robots managed to perform this McKay Professor of Computer excitement in Washington in July, reasonably well. Science at Harvard, is the new President, AAAI's Autonomous Mobile Robot The third event proved the hardest, succeeding Patrick Hayes of the Competitions drew a stream of rousing and none of the robots completed the University of Illinois. The of MIT is President-Elect. The two events drew competitors robots were asked to select four "In the last several years," Grosz and spectators.

We report on the spring 1992 symposium on diagrammatic representations in reasoning and problem solving sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. The symposium brought together psychologists, computer scientists, and philosophers to discuss a range of issues covering both externally represented diagrams and mental images and both psychology -- and AI-related issues. In this article, we develop a framework for thinking about the issues that were the focus of the symposium as well as report on the discussions that took place. We anticipate that traditional symbolic representations will increasingly be combined with iconic representations in future AI research and technology and that this symposium is simply the first of many that will be devoted to this topic.

The field of AI is directed at the fundamental problem of how the mind works; its approach, among other things, is to try to simulate its working -- in bits and pieces. History shows us that mankind has been trying to do this for certainly hundreds of years, but the blooming of current computer technology has sparked an explosion in the research we can now do. The center of AI is the wonderful capacity we call learning, which the field is paying increasing attention to. Learning is difficult and easy, complicated and simple, and most research doesn't look at many aspects of its complexity. However, we in the AI field are starting. Let us now celebrate the efforts of our forebears and rejoice in our own efforts, so that our successors can thrive in their research. This article is the substance, edited and adapted, of the keynote address given at the 1992 annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence on 14 July in San Jose, California.