Fall 1994, 63-75 Abbott, Kathy, see Orlando, Nancy AI and NP-Hard Problems: 1993 Spring Alterman, Richard, see Hendler, James Abhyankar, R. B. Review of Computing Symposium Report.

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) held its 1994 Spring Symposium Series on 19-23 March at Stanford University, Stanford, California. This article contains summaries of 10 of the 11 symposia that were conducted: Applications of Computer Vision in Medical Image Processing; AI in Medicine: Interpreting Clinical Data; Believable Agents; Computational Organization Design; Decision-Theoretic Planning; Detecting and Resolving Errors in Manufacturing Systems; Goal-Driven Learning; Intelligent Multimedia, Multimodal Systems; Software Agents; and Toward Physical Interaction and Manipulation. Papers of most of the symposia are available as technical reports from AAAI.

These software between telephone, television, agents are on their way, and they're going to The be getting a lot of things accomplished by basic idea is that the networks that constitute interacting with each other. The question is, our telephone infrastructure, our television How will these agents be cooperating with (particularly cable) infrastructure, and our each other, competing with each other, and computer infrastructure will be coalescing into negotiating with each other? Now, the agents that we are interested in Another example is routing among looking at are heterogeneous, self-motivated telecommunication networks. The systems are not assumed to be packets, can pass over a network controlled by centrally designed. For example, if you have a one company onto another network controlled personal digital assistant, you might have one by another company, or it can pass that was built by IBM, but the next person through one country on through another. Computers that control a telecommunications They don't necessarily have a notion of global network might find it beneficial to enter into utility. Each personal digital assistant or agreements with other computers that control each agent operating from your machine is other networks about routing packets more interested in what your idea of utility is and efficiently from source to destination. The in how to further your notion of goodness. We're other agents ask them to do unless they have Another example is the proliferation of shared databases, where there's information They have sprung up with a vengeance in the last decade.

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) held its 1994 Spring Symposium Series on 19-23 March at Stanford University, Stanford, California. This article contains summaries of 10 of the 11 symposia that were conducted: Applications of Computer Vision in Medical Image Processing; AI in Medicine: Interpreting Clinical Data; Believable Agents; Computational Organization Design; Decision-Theoretic Planning; Detecting and Resolving Errors in Manufacturing Systems; Goal-Driven Learning; Intelligent Multimedia, Multimodal Systems; Software Agents; and Toward Physical Interaction and Manipulation. Papers of most of the symposia are available as technical reports from AAAI.

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence held its 1993 Fall Symposium Series on October 22-24 in Raleigh, North Carolina. This article contains summaries of the six symposia that were conducted: Automated Deduction in Nonstandard Logics; Games: Planning and Learning; Human-Computer Collaboration: Reconciling Theory, Synthesizing Practice; Instantiating Intelligent Agents; and Machine Learning and Computer Vision: What, Why, and How?

Dartnall, Terry, see Kim, Steven Davis, Randall; Shrobe, Howard; and Szolovits, Peter. What Is a Knowledge 1992 AAAI Robot Exhibition and Competition Leonard, Lisa. Dean, Thomas; and Bonasso, R. Capture and Use, The, see Lee, Jintae Technologies, see Barachini, Franz Cannel Versus Flakey: A Comparison of Dean, Tom, see Joskowicz, Leo. Reasoning Dorr, Bonnie J. Building Lexicons for see Tanner, Steve with Diagrammatic Representations: A Machine Translation: 1993 Spring Anick, Peter; and Simoudis, Evange-Report on the Spring Symposium. Retrieval: 1993 Spring Symposium Charniak, Eugene, see Goldman, Drummond, Mark, see Lansky, Amy Report.

In his recent papers, entitled Intelligence without Representation and Intelligence without Reason, Brooks argues for mobile robots as the foundation of AI research. The article proposes real-world software environments, such as operating systems or databases, as a complementary substrate for intelligent-agent research and considers the relative advantages of software environments as test beds for AI. Brooks's mobile robots tug AI toward a bottom-up focus in which the mechanics of perception and mobility mingle inextricably with or even supersede core AI research. In contrast, the softbots (software robots) I advocate facilitate the study of classical AI problems in real-world (albeit, software) domains.

Benchmarks, test beds, and controlled experimentation are becoming more common. We discuss these issues as they relate to research on agent design. We survey existing test beds for agents and argue for appropriate caution in their use. We end with a debate on the proper role of experimental methodology in the design and validation of planning agents.

My Ph.D. dissertation develops and implements a new model of multiagent coordination, called JOINT RESPONSIBILITY (Jennings 1992b), based on the notion of joint intentions. The responsibility framework was devised specifically for coordinating behavior in complex, unpredictable, and dynamic environments, such as industrial control. The need for such a principled model became apparent during the development and the application of a general-purpose cooperation framework (GRATE) to two real-world industrial applications.

The methodological underpinnings of AI are slowly changing. Benchmarks, test beds, and controlled experimentation are becoming more common. Although we are optimistic that this change can solidify the science of AI, we also recognize a set of difficult issues concerning the appropriate use of this methodology. We discuss these issues as they relate to research on agent design. We survey existing test beds for agents and argue for appropriate caution in their use. We end with a debate on the proper role of experimental methodology in the design and validation of planning agents.