E1AR0002@SMUVM1.BITNET (Leff, Southern Methodist University) (05/03/87)
Summary of Spang Robinson Report
April 1987, Volume 3 No. 4
The lead article of the issue is Expert Systems in Japan.
A recent survey of Japanese companies indicated that half of them are actively
involved in expert systems use or development. They found 50 in prototype
stage, 31 being field tested, 19 operating and 5 in commercial use.
The majority of Japanese expert systems are on mainframes. BRAINNS (from
Toyo Information Systems) and ESHELL are popular tools for expert system
development.
Japanese AI development is estimated at
$170 million/year with fourty percent coming from US
imports. [I reported in AILIST elsewhere that U. S. AI revenues were about
two hundred million.- LEFF]
ADL reports that large Japanese companies are becoming discouraged with
ICOT for being out of schedule and insufficient ROI. There is a new
joint development project involving 200 companies called SIGMA for automating
software generation. It will take natural language input in Japanese and
English and generate code automatically. Funding is 160 million over four
years.
Marty Tenenbaum states that the Japanese are not behind the US in expert systems
develop[ment and they are emphasizing applications to real problems.
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An article on the new TI Compact Lisp Machine
Some of the information in this article that I have not seen in articles on
the CLM that have been reported in AILIST elsewhere is
- There are discussions of integrating the TI Explorer Chip into Apple's
new machine.
- TI may be selling boards to be integrated into commercial as well
as military products
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An article on commercial implications of AI
Hundreds of expert systems have been "fielded"
Dramatic Successes:
Hitachi's expert system for floor planning main frame installations has
reduced the task from eight hours to fifteen minutes.
Canon's expert system for lens design has reduced design time from eight
man-months to two man-weeks
IBM's storage system saves five million a year (it was developed in six
man months)
DEC's XCON saves eighteen million a year while costing two million a year
to maintain.
Most expert systems are small (<300 rules) and are running on micros.
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Applications of expert Systems
Nisssan Auto - engine control system diagnosis (fielded)
Sanwa Bank - investment consultation system for clients (in use at six
branch offices)
Tokyo Electric - substation design (in field test), design time reduced by
a factor of ten
Nihon Steel - blast furnace diagnosis (80 percent accuracy)
Seibu Saison - diet consultation
gift selection
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The expert system, ACORN, from Gold Hill Computers will now be called
GOLDWORKS due to a conflict with Acorn Computers.
Inference Corporation's ART is now available under VMS.
Intellicorp's KEE is now available on the SUN. They are committed to
developing a Japanese version. They have already sold 90 copies in Japan.
MAD intelligent systems is bundling a Relational Lisp which supports both
classical relational operators and functions for complex and recursive
relations.
ExperTelligence's Common Lisp on a Macintosh II runs 53 percent faster
than a Symbolics Lisp machine (as indicated by the Gabriel DDERIV benchmark)
Arthur D. Little is involved in a research project for the Post Office
for applying AI to several areas.
Intelligent Applications will be selling in the US, a machine-health
monitoring system based on vibrations, a tool kit, an Analogue Interface
Expert and a Fault Diagnosis and Schematic Capture System.
Teknowledge has named Peter Weber President and Chief Operation Officer.
He comes from FMC Corporation where he established their AI system.
Symbolics has appointed Annie Brooking as marketing director.
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Also a listing of some papers reporting on Japan's AI research.