[comp.ai.digest] Connectionist expert systems

hendler@DORMOUSE.CS.UMD.EDU (Jim Hendler) (06/16/88)

Date: Wed, 15 Jun 88 11:09 EDT
From: Jim Hendler <hendler@dormouse.cs.umd.edu>
To: AIList-REQUEST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU
Subject: Re:   Connectionist expert systems


There are essentially two strains of work going on in this area.  One
strain involves the actual implementation of expert-system-like programs
using connectionist techniques.  I'll let the real connectionists
comment on those.  The second strain involves the creation of hybrid
systems which have both connectionist and symbolic mechanisms
cooperating in the solution of traditional cognitivish AI problems (i.e.
language, planning, ``high level'' vision, etc.)  As well as my own work
in this area, there is the work of Wendy Lehnert of UMass, Michael Dyer
of UCLA, Mark Jones of Bell Labs, and, depending on how you classify it,
the work of Dave Touretzky at CMU (Dave's work doesn't really have
symbols in the traditional sense of the word, but some of his models
use gating and other serial techniques to control a larger connectionist
system).  Also, the work of the local (now often called structured)
connectionists have in some ways been hybrid.  The one most related
might be that of Lokendra Shastri of U Penn.

  -Jim Hendler
   U. of Md. Institute for Advanced Computer Studies
   UMCP
   College Park, Md. 20742