AIList-REQUEST@SRI-AI.ARPA (AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws) (01/15/86)
AIList Digest Wednesday, 15 Jan 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 8 Today's Topics: Queries - Macsyma & Symbolics Prolog & Speech Learning Machine, Definition - Paradigm, Intelligence - Computer IQ Tests, AI Tools & Applications - Expert Systems and Computer Graphics & Common Lisp for Xerox & Real-Time Process Control ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Jan 86 23:16 GMT From: dkb-amos @ HAWAII-EMH.ARPA Subject: Macsyma I would appreciate any help that could be supplied in locating a source for Macsyma. I'm looking for a version that will run under Franzlisp Opus 38.91. We do contract work for the Air Force but I have no immediate contract application for this package, I would just like to get familier with it and have it around for possible future applications. Thanks. -- Dennis Biringer ------------------------------ Date: Mon 13 Jan 86 16:07:10-PST From: Luis Jenkins <lej@SRI-KL> Subject: Symbolics Prolog [Sorry if this topic has been beaten to death before many time ...] Here at Schlumberger Palo Alto Research (SPAR) we have been working for some time on large Prolog programs for Hardware Verification, first in Dec-20 Prolog and then in Quintus Prolog for Suns. Recently we have been interested in the possibility of using Symbolics Prolog for further R&D work, as the lab has a bunch of LispMs. Does anyone out there has first-hand (or n-hand, please specify) experience with the Prolog that Symbolics offers. Specifically, we want to hear praises/complaints about :- o DEC-10/Quintus Compatibility o Speed o Bugs o Extensions o Interface with the LispM environment o Mixing Prolog & Lisp code o Random User Comments Thanks, Luis Jenkins Schlumberger Palo Alto Research lej@sri-kl ...decwrl!spar!lej ------------------------------ Date: 13 Jan 86 11:22:01 EST From: kyle.wbst@Xerox.ARPA Subject: Johns Hopkins Learning Machine Does anyone have any more info on the following: I caught the tail end of a news item on the NBC Today Show this morning about someone at Johns Hopkins who has built a "Networked" computer consisting of 300 "elements" that has a speech synthesizer attached to it. The investigator claims that the thing learns to speak English the same way a human baby does. They played a tape recording which represented a condensation of several hours of "learning" by the device. The investigator claims he does not know how the the thing works. I didn't catch his name. Who is this person and what is the system configuration of the machine (which seemed to fit into one large rack of equipment). Earle Kyle ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Jan 86 09:34:53 est From: Walter Hamscher <hamscher@MIT-HTVAX.ARPA> Subject: Today Show Segment A friend of mine saw the Today Show this Monday morning, and said there was a particularly breathless segment that left the impression that somebody has solved `the AI problem'. It seems to have been a rather vague story about someone at Johns Hopkins who has built some sort of massively parallel machine that learns language. Sorry the details are so sketchy. Did anybody else see this segment or know the story behind the story? ------------------------------ Date: 14 Jan 86 22:05:47 EST From: Mike Tanner @ Ohio State <TANNER@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> Subject: Paradigm I've seen some discussion of paradigm in recent AILists and since I just audited a grad course in philosophy of science where we read Kuhn I thought I'd summarize what I remember of Kuhn's notion of paradigm. (Auditing a course certainly does not make me an expert, but it does mean that I've read Kuhn recently and carefully.) Several people have pointed out that the dictionary definition (e.g., Webster's 3rd New International) of `paradigm' is `example', `pattern', or `model'. But they further claim that this is not what Kuhn meant. However, I think that the way `paradigm' is used by Kuhn is (most of the time) perfectly compatible with the dictionary. In _The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions_ Kuhn normally uses `paradigm' to mean `example of theory applied' or `example of how to do science'. (Sometimes he uses it to mean `theory', which is confusing and I think he later admits that it is just sloppiness on his part.) Ron Laymon, our prof in the philosophy of science course, suggested that it might be best to think of paradigm as `an uninterpreted book'. Everybody working in some field points to a book when asked what they do and says, "There, read that book and you'll know." Of course, once the book is opened there's likely to be a lot of disagreement about what it means. Another important characteristic of paradigms is that they suggest a lot of further research. If I were a cynical person I would say that the success of a paradigm depends on people's perceptions of funding prospects for research of the sort that it defines. I'm not sure that AI is mature enough to rate any paradigms. But I think that a case could be made for some things as "mini-paradigms", such as GPS, MYCIN, Minsky's frame paper, etc. That is, they defined some sub-discipline within AI where a lot of people did, and are doing, fruitful work. (I don't mean "mini" to be pejorative. I just think that a paradigm has to be a candidate for unifying research in the field, or maybe even defining the field, and these probably don't qualify. But then, I might be expecting too much of paradigms.) -- mike ARPA: tanner@Rutgers CSNet: tanner@Ohio-State Physically, I am at Ohio State but I have a virtual existence at Rutgers and can receive mail either place. ------------------------------ Date: Wed 15 Jan 86 09:42:58-CST From: David Throop <AI.THROOP@R20.UTEXAS.EDU> Subject: Computers & IQ Tests There have been recent inquiries about how well computer programs can do on IQ tests. An article in the journal _Telicom_ (1) mentions a computer program for taking IQ tests. It seems to be aimed entirely at the kinds of math puzzles that fill in missing numbers in series. "The program (is) called HIQ-SOLVER 160 ... BASIC, less than 10 Kbytes... in July/August Dutch computer magazine _Sinclair_Gebruiker_ has the listing... The program has been tried on the numerical test in Hans Eysenck's _Check_Your_Own_IQ_ and it solved 36 out of 50 problems, corresponding with an IQ of about 160 (hence its name); as some items in the Eysenck test were of a type that had not been implemented one might argue that the program's raw score corresponds with an even higher IQ ..." He goes on to give the algorithm. I think this example highlights an example of the difficulty of applying human IQ tests to machines - the program scores very high on certain IQ tests because it does a very limited kind of pattern recognition very well. But it is completely brittle - it's helpless to recognize patterns that are only slightly off what it expects. Human intelligence tests do not measure human intelligence directly. They measure characteristics associated with intelligence. The underlying assumption is that this association is good enough that it will predict how well humans will do on tasks that cannot be given as standard tests, but evince intelligence. This is a dubious proposition for humans, but it breaks down completely on machines. Nonetheless, it shouldn't be too hard to CONS up some programs that do terribly well on some not too terribly well designed IQ tests. (1)Feenstra, Marcel "Numerical IQ - Tests and Intelligence" Telicom, Aug 85, Bx 141 San Francisco 94101 ------------------------------ Date: Sun 12 Jan 86 18:05:49-PST From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA> Subject: Expert Systems and Computer Graphics IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, December 1985, pp. 58-59, has a review by Ware Myers of the 6th Eurographics conference. The key theme was integrating expert systems and computer graphics. Several of the papers discussed binding Prolog and the GKS graphical kernel standard. ------------------------------ Date: Sun 12 Jan 86 17:28:34-PST From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA> Subject: Common Lisp for Xerox Expert Systems, Vol. 2, No. 4, October 1985, p. 252, reports that Xerox will be implementing Common Lisp on its Lisp workstations. The first copies may be available in the second quarter of 1986. Xerox will continue to support Interlisp-D, and will be adding extensions and compatable features to both languages. A package for converting Interlisp-D programs to Common Lisp is being developed. Guy Steele said (Common Lisp, p. 3) that it is expected that user- level packages such as InterLisp would be built on top of the Common Lisp core. Perhaps that is now happening. Xerox is also offering CommonLoops as a proposed standard for object-oriented programming. ------------------------------ Date: Sun 12 Jan 86 18:00:24-PST From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA> Subject: Real-Time Process Control IEEE Spectrum, January 1986, p. 64, reports the following: The building of engineering expertise into single-loop controllers is beginning to bear fruit in the form of a self-tuning process controller. The Foxboro Co. in Foxboro, Mass., included self-tuning features in its Model 760 single-loop controller as well as in three other controller-based products. Common PID (proportional, integral, and derivative) controllers made by Foxboro now have a built-in microprocessor with some 200 production rules; the loop-tuning rules have evolved over the last 40 years both at Foxboro and elsewhere. The Foxboro self-tuning method is a pattern recognition approach that allows the user to specify desirable temporal response to disturbances in the controlled parameter or in the controlled set point. The controller then observes the actual shape of these disturbances and adjusts its PID values to restore the desirable response. Asea also makes a self-tuning controller, Novatune, but the current version requires substantial knowledge of stochastic control theory to install. Lisp Machine Inc. has now installed PICON, its expert system for real-time process control, at about a half-dozen sites. It has also announced support for GM's MAP communication protocol for factory automation. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ********************