Artificial Intelligence Techniques and Methodology

Two closely related aspects of artificial intelligence that have received comparatively little attention in the recent literature are research methodology, and the analysis of computational techniques that span multiple application areas. We believe both issues to be increasingly significant as Artificial Intelligence matures into a science and spins off major application efforts. Similarly, awareness of research methodology issues can help plan future research buy learning from past successes and failures. We view the study of research methodology to be similar to the analysis of operational AI techniques, but at a meta-level; that is, research methodology analyzes the techniques and methods used by the researchers themselves, rather than their programs, to resolve issues of selecting interesting and tractable problems to investigate, and of deciding how to proceed with their investigations.