From 1949 through the late required to have his research more didn't finish 1960s, he did the best work in making vigorously followed up on. He was the computers learn from their experience. Programs for playing games often and what would be required to In 1949, Samuel joined IBM's fill the role in artificial intelligence reach human-level intelligence. Poughkeepsie Laboratory, where he research that the fruit fly Drosophila Samuel's papers on machine learning worked on IBM's first stored program plays in genetics. Drosophilae are are still worth studying.

In this issue, Luc Steels takes a new Clay Carr, Homer Chin, Aaron Cohn, overly commercial tone, for example, and insightful look at knowledgebased Michael Compton, Ajit Dingankar, an article that serves mainly to extol systems and provides a synthesis Lance Eliot, David Fogel, Tom the virtues of a commercial product. of several different approaches to Gruber, Uma Gupta, Larry Hall, Jim Second, the article should be well analyzing expertise. It's a long article Hightower, Dwight Johnson, Bob written. We don't have the editorial but, in my opinion, an important Joyce, Murali Krishnamurthi, John staff to do extensive rewriting. I recommend it to anyone with Kunz, Douglas Leyh, Jim MacDonald, and perhaps, unfortunately, an interest in knowledge-level analysis Brigitte Maitre, Robert Newstadt, we rarely publish manuscripts of expert systems. On the same Matthew Realff, Jeff Schlimmer, Allen submitted by non-English-speaking general topic of expert systems but Sherzer, Bob Smith, Scott Staley, Lynn authors.

Pattern Recognition (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1987, 144 pages, ISBN 0-471-61120-4) by Mike James is a concise survey of the practice of image recognition.

In his new book "Alternate Realities: Mathematical Models of Nature and Man (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1989, 493 pages, $34.95), John L. Casti gives us an impressive, up-to-date look at several areas of mathematics that are being applied to the study of biological and sociological systems.

This article reviews research in the development of plan generation systems. Our goal is to familiarize the reader with some of the important problems that have arisen in the design of planning systems and to discuss some of the many solutions that have been developed in the over 30 years of research in this area. In this article, we broadly cover the major ideas in the field of AI planning and show the direction in which some current research is going. We define some of the terms commonly used in the planning literature, describe some of the basic issues coming from the design of planning systems, and survey results in the area. Because such tasks are virtually never ending, and thus, any finite document must be incomplete, we provide references to connect each idea to the appropriate literature and allow readers access to the work most relevant to their own research or applications.

This article examines the near-term impact of expert system technology on work and the organization. First, an approach is taken for forecasting the likely extent of the diffusion, or success, of the technology. Next, the case of advanced manufacturing technologies and their effects is considered. From this analysis, a framework is constructed for viewing the impact of these technologies -- and technologies in general -- as a function of the technology itself; market realities; and personal, organizational, and societal values and policy choices. Two scenarios are proposed with respect to the application of this framework to expert systems. The first concludes that expert systems will have little impact on the nature of work and the organization. The second scenario posits that expert system diffusion will be pulled by, and will be a contributing factor toward, the evolution of the lean, flexible, knowledge-intensive, postindustrial organization.

Many barriers exist today that prevent effective industrial exploitation of current and future AI research. These barriers can only be removed by people who are working at the scientific forefront in AI and know potential industrial needs. The Knowledge Processing Laboratory's research and development concentrates in the following areas: (1) natural language interfaces to knowledge-based systems and databases; (2) theoretical and experimental work on qualitative modeling and nonmonotonic reasoning for future knowledge-based systems; (3) application-specific language design, in particular, Prolog extensions; and (4) desi gn and analysis of neural networks. This article gives the reader an overview of the main topics currently being pursued in each of these areas.

Stewart Brand, of Whole Earth Catalog fame, is a technology enthusiast. In 1986, he spent three months in the fantasyland of his choice, MIT's Media Laboratory (formerly the Architecture Machine Group). In his latest book, The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT (Viking/ Penguin, New York, 1988, 285 pp., $10, ISBN 0-14-009701-5), he tells the world what he found.

Part of the Media Laboratory's Steve Benton on an advanced beammixing information. Like Richard Feynman's heritage (its origins are in the television display), (4) movies two books of memoirs and School of Architecture) is a startling of the future (putting feature-length Gleick's Chaos, this book will be receptivity to the arts, especially movies on laser disks, thereby ushering passed among workers in computer music and the visual arts, and Brand in paperback movies), (5) the visible and engineering departments as a repeatedly returns to this subject.

To be considered exceptional, a textbook must satisfy three basic requirements. First, it must be authoritative, written by one with a broad range of experience in, and knowledge of, a subject. Second, it must effectively communicate to the reader, in the same manner in which a course instructor must be capable of imparting knowledge to students in a classroom. Third, it must stimulate the reader into thinking more deeply about the subject and into viewing it from fresh perspectives. In Artificial Intelligence: A Knowledge-Based Approach (Boyd and Fraser, Boston, 740 pp., $48.95), author Morris W. Firebaugh has succeeded in meeting each of these requirements.