SAMY@gmr.COM ("R. Uthurusamy") (01/05/88)
Seminar at the General Motors Research Laboratories in Warren, Michigan.
Wednesday, January 20, 1988 at 10 a.m.
RECOVERY FROM INCORRECT KNOWLEDGE IN SOAR
JOHN E. LAIRD
Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Dept.
The University of Michigan
ABSTRACT:
In previous work, we have demonstrated some of the generality of Soar's
problem solving and learning capabilities. We even gone so far as to
hypothesize that the simple learning mechanism in Soar, chunking, combined
with its general problem solving capabilities, is sufficient for all
cognitive learning. This is a radical hypothesis especially when we
consider Soar's difficulty with recovery from incorrect knowledge.
Soar acquires incorrect knowledge whenever it chunks over invalid
inductive inferences made during problem solving. Recovery requires
some form of identification and correction of the incorrect knowledge.
Recovery is complicated in Soar by the fact that we have made the following
assumptions: chunking is the only learning mechanism; long-term knowledge,
represented as production rules, is only added, never forgotten, modified
or replaced; and the productions are not open for direct examination by the
learning mechanism or the problem solver.
In this talk I will review chunking in Soar and present recent results in
developing a domain-independent approach for the recovery from incorrect
knowledge in Soar. This approach does not require any change to the Soar
architecture, but uses chunking to learn rules that overcome the incorrect
knowledge. The key is to use the problem solving to deliberately reconsider
decisions that might be in error. If a decision is found to be incorrect,
the problem solving corrects it and a new chunk is learned that will correct
the decision in the future.
Non-GMR personnel interested in attending this seminar please contact
R. Uthurusamy [ samy@gmr.com ] 313-986-1989
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