There has been a flurry of interest recently in the possibility of standardizing existing work on knowledge representation; this interest is supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and other funding agencies. An examination of recent work on knowledge representation makes it clear that there are deep differences among the approaches taken. Those supporting knowledge representation standards are attempting to address this difficulty by creating a single language in which all knowledge representation schemes can be expressed (Genesereth 1990), but this task seems impossible given the current state of the field. However, it is surely not possible to construct a language that will also incorporate all future knowledge representation work, other than in the trivial sense guaranteed by the universality of some specific method, such as first-order logic or a general-purpose programming language. Furthermore, attempts in this direction will inevitably constrain future knowledge representation efforts; even gentle constraints might have a stifling impact on future knowledge representation work.

There has been a good deal of discussion recently about the possibility of standardizing knowledge representation efforts, including the development of an interlingua, or knowledge interchange format (KIF), that would allow developers of declarative knowledge to share their results with other AI researchers. In this article, I examine the practicality of this idea. I present some philosophical arguments against it, describe a straw-man KIF, and suggest specific experiments that would help explore these issues.

There has been a good deal of discussion recently about the possibility of standardizing knowledge representation efforts, including the development of an interlingua, or knowledge interchange format (KIF), that would allow developers of declarative knowledge to share their results with other AI researchers. In this article, I examine the practicality of this idea. I present some philosophical arguments against it, describe a straw-man KIF, and suggest specific experiments that would help explore these issues.