Machine-learning research has been making great progress in many directions. This article summarizes four of these directions and discusses some current open problems. The four directions are (1) the improvement of classification accuracy by learning ensembles of classifiers, (2) methods for scaling up supervised learning algorithms, (3) reinforcement learning, and (4) the learning of complex stochastic models.

Busey Bank (Champaign, Ill.) is using intelligent-agent technology to launch its Lloyds Bowmaker Motor Finance (Petersfield, U.K.) has implemented a The Philadelphia Stock Exchange care products, has developed a rulebased neural network-based system for credit (Philadelphia, Pa.) has adopted an multinational order-entry and scoring new loan applications. The company is system helps Lloyds determine whether increase the reliability and scalability using the system to process orders to accept a loan and gives the reasons of network-supported options-trading from its network of more than for its choice. The system uses an electronic facilities. The software will permit installed a rule-based expert system to camera to image the front face of letters, team members in different geographic manage the complexity of producing identify the destination address, locations to explore similar multisensory more than 20,000 new designs and and determine its delivery-point bar environments both independently 2.4 billion greeting cards annually. The company has completely reengineered its operation, converting an Telecommunications providers MCI Healthcare software developer HBO & antiquated job-shop operation into a (Washington, D.C.) and BT (London, Company (Atlanta, Ga.) is developing state-of-the-art cellular one.

This historical, developmental approach to AI was visible throughout the conference. The presented at the 1997 Mobile Robot the end of the twentieth century," strong tutorial sessions, workshops, Competition, for example, time was "A computer beat natural language, machine learning to Robot Competition get better, and the the world champion at chess. A robot reasoning and representation, the events get harder. This year, the events is on Mars making a few of its own decisions." More than 20 teams competed AI's visible achievements, noted Allen deftly compared AI to the stages this year. At its heart, it is a technical of human development.

Automatic speech recognition is one of the fastest growing and commercially most promising applications of natural language technology. The technology has achieved a point where carefully designed systems for suitably constrained applications are a reality. Commercial systems are available today for such tasks as large-vocabulary dictation and voice control of medical equipment. This article reviews how state-of-the-art speech-recognition systems combine statistical modeling, linguistic knowledge, and machine learning to achieve their performance and points out some of the research issues in the field.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence in research on empirical methods in natural language processing. These methods employ learning techniques to automatically extract linguistic knowledge from natural language corpora rather than require the system developer to manually encode the requisite knowledge. The current special issue reviews recent research in empirical methods in speech recognition, syntactic parsing, semantic processing, information extraction, and machine translation. This article presents an introduction to the series of specialized articles on these topics and attempts to describe and explain the growing interest in using learning methods to aid the development of natural language processing systems.

Gary Kasparov in the final game of of Technology Computer Science Computer Chess, created in a tied, six-game match last May 11. Soon thereafter, the team moved to IBM, where they have been ever since, working under wraps on Deep Blue. The $100,000 third tier of the prize was awarded at AAAI-97 to this IBM team, who built the first computer chess machine that beat a world chess champion. The members of the Deep Blue team were also honored for their achievement with the Allen Newell Research Excellence Medal, sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University. Allen Newell Medals were presented to each of the major researchers in the field whose earlier contributions ultimately led to the success of Deep Blue.

One of the best things about conferences, as we all know, is the opportunity they afford to consolidate old friendships and make new contacts. Clusters of con-versation provide a more valuable way to spend ones time than attending sessions. At the last national meeting we escaped from the celebrations of the recent victory of Deep Blue over the dreaded Kasparov, to find just such a group, already engaged in an animated discussion ....

New additions in 1998 (UAI-98), July 24-26, 1998 February 1, 1998, use of the new 650 will be the Integrated Systems Track of --papers due February 23, 1998 code will be mandatory; so, please update the technical program and the Intelligent --www.uai98.cbmi.upmc.edu The Computing Research Association All regular members in good February 27: Intelligent Systems is planning a Career Development standing are encouraged to consider Demonstration proposals due. Details can be found at www. (at least one from a current is available by writing to ncai@ cra.org. AAAI fellow) must accompany nominations. Nomination materials are also available on AAAI is delighted to announce the AAAI-98 Workshop Program.

This article posits the idea of robot learning as a new subfield. The results of the Robolearn-96 Workshop provide evidence that learning in modern robotics is distinct from traditional machine learning. The article examines the role of robotics in the social and natural sciences and the potential impact of learning on robotics, generating both a continuum of research issues and a description of the divergent terminology, target domains, and standards of proof associated with robot learning. The article argues that although robot learning is a new subfield, there is significant potential for synergy with traditional machine learning if the differences in research cultures can be overcome.

In adjacent agents from dropping their commitments; (held in Kyoto, Japan, on 10-13 December domains (logical philosophy, social or better, how to regulate 1996). Both the program committee philosophy, decision theory), both legal agents dropping their commitments and the contributors included and social norms have received to a joint action to not disrupt the scientists from different backgrounds considerable, if not satisfactory, attention. The discussion addressed on, has contributed dramatically to These tasks have now entered the several issues: (1) What is the the attention given by the scientific MAS field's common knowledge. Often action is reduced to decision authorization, access regulation, For example, the existence of so-called (that is, a choice among one's privacy maintenance, respect of decency, Georgeff 1991) have shown that we and Tennenholtz 1992). Why? Don't we need a reciprocity.