R1 is a rule-based program that configures VAX-11 computer systems. Given a customer's purchase order, it determines what, if any, substitutions and additions have to be made to the order to make it consistent and complete and produces a number of diagrams showing the spatial and logical relationships among the 90 or so components that typically constitute a system. The program has been used on a regular basis by Digital Equipment Corporation's manufacturing organization since January of 1980. R1 has sufficient knowledge of the configuration domain and of the percliarities of the various configuration constraints that at each step in the configuration process, it simply recognizes what to do; thus it requires little search in order to configure a computer system.

This is the first presidential address of AAAI, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. In the grand scheme of history of artificial intelligence (AI), this is surely a minor event. The field this scientific society represents has been thriving for quite some time. No doubt the society itself will make solid contributions to the health of our field. But it is too much to expect a presidential address to have a major impact. So what is the role of the presidential address and what is the significance of the first one? I believe its role is to set a tone, to provide an emphasis. I think the role of the first address is to take a stand about what that tone and emphasis should be-set expectations for future addresses and to communicate to my fellow presidents. Only two foci are really possible for a presidential address: the state of the society or the state of the science. I believe the latter to be correct focus. AAAI itself, its nature and its relationship to the larger society that surrounds it, are surely important. However, our main business is to help AI become a science -- albeit a science with a strong engineering flavor. Thus, though a president's address cannot be narrow or highly technical, it can certainly address a substantive issue. That is what I propose to do.

Advanced Information and Decision Systems (AI-DS) is a relatively new, employee-owned company that does basic and applied research, product development, and consulting in the fields of artificial intelligence, computer science, decision analysis, operations research, control theory, estimation theory, and signal processing. AI&DS performs studies, analyses, systems design and evaluation, and software development for a variety of industrial clients and government agencies, including the Department of Defense and Energy.

Carnegie-Mellon University has established a Robotics Institute to bring its expertise in engineering, science, and industrial administration to bear upon the problem of national industrial productivity. The institute has been established to undertake advanced research and development in seeing, thinking robots and intelligent systems, and to facilitate transfer of this technology to industry. The Institute is engaged in broad programs of research in robotics, artificial intelligence, manufacturing technology, micro-electronics technology, and computer science. The Institute offers the promise of dramatic advances that will not only improve the productivity of all types of employees but also lead to improvements in the "quality of life" for all.

On August 18 and 19, 1980, at Stanford U n i v e r s i t y during at Stanford U n i v e r s i t y, with the actual game on i n a c l o s e d the A A A I conference, the f i r s t of a projected p a i r of annual room containing o n l y the player, computer terminal operators c h e s s competitions pitting the w o r l d ' s best computer programs (L a r r y A t k i n and David Cahlander of Control Data Corporation) against rated human p l a y e r s of approximately the same and the referee. U p s t a i r s was a large demonstration strength was held. These matches are part of the F r e d k i n p r i z e room where two boards, one for the actual position and one competition, wherein a sum of $100,000, established by the for a n a l y s i s, were used to keep the audience abreast of what F r e d k i n Foundation of Cambridge, Mass, i s to be awarded to was happening and could be expected to happen. The moves the creators of a program that can defeat the W o r l d Chess were communicated through a telecommunications setup Champion i n o f f i c i a l competition. The program i n t h i s match was C H E S S 4.9 of Northwestern In the f i r s t game, C H E S S 4.9 played the White s i d e of a U n i v e r s i t y, authored by David S l a t e and L a r r y A t k i n.

The Yale Artificial Intelligence Project, under the direction of Professor Roger C. Schank, supports a number of research projects. Most of this research is in the02-02 area of attempting to model the processes involved in human understanding, with a current emphasis on memory models and the processes involved in learning.

By-Laws of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

AI research at CMU is closely integrated with other activities in the Computer Science Department, and to a major degree with ongoing research in the Psychology Department. Although there are over 50 faculty, staff and graduate students involved in various aspects of AI research, there is no administratively (or physically) separate AI laboratory. To underscore the interdisciplinary nature of our AI research, a significant fraction of the projects listed below are joint ventures between computer science and psychology.

This article is the second planned excerpt from the Handbook of Artificial Intelligence being complied at Stanford University. This overview of the Handbook chapter on search, like the overview of natural language research we printed in the first issue, introduces the important ideas and techniques, which are discussed in detail later in the chapter. Cross-references to other articles in the Handbook have been removed -- terms discussed in more detail elsewhere are italicized. The author would like to note that this article draws on material generously made available by Nils Nilsson for use in the Handbook.

Twenty five years is not long in the history of a science--long enough to achieve, short enough to remember. Your esteemed founders are still around -- vigorous, not so young anymore. Out of the cybernetics you came, and information-theoretic psychology. You were born in the early days of modern computing, on hot, bulky hardware with names few now remember, like JOHNNIAC; in strange and wonderful software called list structures, with stacks you could "push down" and "pop-up," bearing arcane acronyms like IPL and FLPL.