SPE
Domain-Based Program Synthesis Using Planning and Derivational Analogy
In my Ph.D. dissertation (Bhansali 1991), I develop an integrated knowledge-based framework for efficiently synthesizing programs by bringing together ideas from the fields of software engineering (software reuse, domain modeling) and AI (hierarchical planning, analogical reasoning). Based on this framework, I constructed a prototype system, APU, that can synthesize UNIX shell scripts from a high-level specification of problems typically encountered by novice shell programmers. An empirical evaluation of the system's performance points to certain criteria that determine the feasibility of the derivational analogy approach in the automatic programming domain when the cost of detecting analogies and recovering from wrong analogs is considered.
Logical Versus Analogical or Symbolic Versus Connectionist or Neat Versus Scruffy
Engineering and scientific education condition us to expect everything, including intelligence, to have a simple, compact explanation. Today, some researchers who seek a simple, compact explanation hope that systems modeled on neural nets or some other connectionist idea will quickly overtake more traditional systems based on symbol manipulation. Others believe that symbol manipulation, with a history that goes back millennia, remains the only viable approach. AI is not like circuit theory and electromagnetism.
Improving Human Decision Making through Case-Based Decision Aiding
It is consistent with much that psychologists have observed in the natural problem solving people do. Psychologists have also observed, however, that people have several problems in doing analogical or case-based reasoning. I present case-based decision aiding as a methodology for building systems in which people and machines work together to solve problems. The case-based decision-aiding system augments the person's memory by providing cases (analogs) for a person to use in solving a problem.
Case-Based Reasoning: A Research Paradigm
In solving a new problem, we rely on past episodes. It assumes a memory model for representing, indexing, and organizing past cases and a process model for retrieving and modifying old cases and assimilating new ones. The research issues for case-based reasoning include the representation of episodic knowledge, memory organization, indexing, case modification, and learning. In this article, I review the history of case-based reasoning, including research conducted at the Yale AI Project and elsewhere.
The Use of Artificial Intelligence by the United States Navy: Case Study of a Failure
This article analyzes an attempt to use computing technology, including AI, to improve the combat readiness of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. The method of introducing new technology, as well as the reaction of the organization to the use of the technology, is examined to discern the reasons for the rejection by the carrier's personnel of a technically sophisticated attempt to increase mission capability. This effort to make advanced computing technology, such as expert systems, an integral part of the organizational environment and, thereby, to significantly alter traditional decision-making methods failed for two reasons: (1) the innovation of having users, as opposed to the navy research and development bureaucracy, perform the development function was in conflict with navy operational requirements and routines and (2) the technology itself was either inappropriate or perceived by operational experts to be inappropriate for the tasks of the organization. Finally, this article suggests those obstacles that must be overcome to successfully introduce state-of-the-art computing technology into any organization.