Work on expert systems has received extensive attention recently, prompting growing interest in a range of environments. Much has been made of the basic concept and of the rule-based system approach typically used to construct the programs. Perhaps this is a good time then to review what we know, asses the current prospects, and suggest directions appropriate for the next steps of basic research. I'd like to do that today, and propose to do it by taking you on a journey of sorts, a metaphorical trip through the State of the Art of Expert Systems. We'll wander about the landscape, ranging from the familiar territory of the Land of Accepted Wisdom, to the vast unknowns at the Frontiers of Knowledge. I guarantee we'll all return safely, so come along....

John was best known lately for his work on expert systems, for conversations that helped calibrate my mental compass. He was enthusiastic about and welcomed the added strength that he gave me. Without John, our laboratory is noticeably less than it achieve something truly important. We are proud to have been his colleagues and fortunate John's attitude about my counterarguments was that they I wish he were still here to overcome them.

I went to a panel on "Education in AI" and stepped back into an argument that I had thought settled several years ago. The debate was between the "scruffies," led by Roger Schank and Ed Feignbaum, and the "neats," led by Nils Nilsson. The neats argued that no education in AI was complete without a strong theoretical component, containing, for instance, courses on predicate logic and automata theory. The scruffies maintained that such a theoretical component was not only unnecessary, but harmful.

The second KL-One workshop was held over a five-day period in October, 1981. The workshop included a general conference session, wherein people could report on activies at their own institutions, and a two day working research session.

In this respect, AI is analogous to applied in a variety of other subject areas. Typically, AI research (or should be) more concerned with the general form and properties of representational languages and methods than it is with the context being described by these languages. In these areas AI is concerned with content as well as form. Some definitions of AI would include peripheral as well as cognitive processes; here we argue against including the peripheral processes.

Minutes of the Second Annual Meeting of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence Abstract Summary of the Executive Council meeting held 26 August 1981 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Summary of the Executive Council meeting held 26 August 1981 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Our program in AI is part of the larger departmental focal area of cybernetics which integrates both AI and brain theory (BT). Our research also draws upon a new and expanding interdepartmental program in cognitive science that brings together researchers in cybernetics, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. This interdisciplinary approach to AI has already led to a number of fruitful collaborations in the areas of cooperative computation, learning, natural language parsing, and vision.

Amidst the beautiful foliage in Jackson, N.H., the each session circulated a position paper to the group, Second KL-ONE Workshop was held over a five-day raising the questions he wanted to see addressed at the period this past October. Not only did "KloneTalk" (a version of KL-ONE implemented in we have a general conference session, wherein people SmaiiTa k at Xerox PARC -- this inchrded a videotaped could report on activities at their own institutions, discuss demonstration of the system's interface), prototypes in issues of general interest, etc., we also had a knowledge representation, translation of INTERLISP two-and-a-half day working research session. KL-ONE to FranzLisp, a calculus of Structural The technieai discussion part of the Workshop Descriptions, and the KL-ONE Classifier, not to mention several others. We also had the larger group break up preceded the general conference, so that we could report into smaller working groups to consider inference in on findings to the larger group of participants (forty-six KL-ONE, representing beliefs, some KL-ONE practice this year, from twenty-one institutions). Also, we planned to cover only a small extensive Proceedings of the Workshop.

Summary of the Executive Council meeting held 26 August 1981 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Our program in AI is part of the larger departmental focal area of cybernetics which integrates both AI and brain theory (BT). Our research also draws upon a new and expanding interdepartmental program in cognitive science that brings together researchers in cybernetics, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. This interdisciplinary approach to AI has already led to a number of fruitful collaborations in the areas of cooperative computation, learning, natural language parsing, and vision.