[comp.ai.digest] Review - Spang Robinson V3 N10

E1AR0002@SMUVM1.BITNET (Leff, Southern Methodist University) (11/09/87)

Summary of the Spang Robinson Report on Artificial Intelligence
October 1987, Volume 3, No. 10

The lead story is on Financial Expert Systems:

A survey of insurance and companies show that 21 per cent are using
expert systems with 20 per cent having no activity and the others in
various stages of development or research.  For banks, the figures are
12 and 47 per cent respectively.  The article gives information on
management attitudes, uses and comparisons of activity in property and
casualty and life insurance, use of PC's, mainframes and lisp machines and
type of language.

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Review of video tape classes on expert systems, "AI Masters"
by Addison-Wesley.  This set has courses given by Patrick H. Winston,
Randall Davis and J. Ross Quinlan.  The training aid has work books and
a simple PC expert tools.  The workbooks have checklists to be used
in tool and application selection and test.  The training system maligns,
perhaps due to datedness, PC-based expert systems and induction tools.
The three courses run for $2500-$3500 apiece with additional workbooks
for $10.00 a piece.

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Programs in Motion's Fusion allows user to put in examples and
generate production rules.  The system can accept an example matrix of
32 factors and 32 resultsants and up to 255 different examples to
generate rules.  (There can be more than 255 cases if some of the cases
are redundant.)

The system does allow chaining of the decision rules.  Fusion can
generate C, Pascal and production code and read in dBase files.

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shorts:

Symantec Corporation has merged with THINK technologies.

Digitalk has released a new version of Smalltalk/V with high resolution
object oriented programming for IBM PS-2/25 and 30 computers.

Cognitive Systems, Inc. has developed a system to read messages and route
them to the appropriate people in a bank.

Teknowledge has been awarded a $1.2 million  contract for work on Pilot's
Associate.

U. S. Army is purchasing ART plus various services from Inference Corporation
(more than $3 million worth)

Palladian Software has sold its Operations Advisor to Blue Cross and Blue
Shield.

Odetics got a contract to apply AI to residual heat removal in
nuclear power plants.

Gold Hill Computer  has signed a distriubtion agreement with
Computer Engineering and Consulting of Japan.

System Research and Development Co. of Tokyo
has developed a new expert system building
tool called ESPARON.

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Discussion of the Gigamos vs. Gensym dispute.

Gigamos and Gensym are both headed by former leaders of LMI who sold
all assets to Gigamos.  Gigamos charges Gensym with using trade secrets
and confidential information to develop a new expert system for
real time applications (G2) in competitition with Gigamos.  Gigamos
charges Gensym founders
with "planning to resign from LMI and to use LMI proprietary
information in the new GENSYM business venture."  They also accuse Gensym
of causing other LMI resignations helping defeating LMI financing.
Gigamos is asking for a copy of the software and source code to be
depositth g