lansky@VENICE.AI.SRI.COM.UUCP (04/10/87)
PARALLELISM IN INTERPRETERS FOR KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION LANGUAGES
Henry Lieberman (HENRY@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU)
MIT
11:00 AM, MONDAY, April 13
SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228
While there has been considerable interest in applying parallelism to
problems of search in knowledge representation languages, lingering
assumptions of sequentiality in the interpreters for such languages still
stand in the way of making effective use of parallelism. Most knowledge
representation languages have a sequential QUERY-SEARCH-ANSWER loop, the
analog of the READ-EVAL-PRINT loop of Lisp, and employ parallelism only in
the SEARCH phase, if at all. I will discuss parallel alternatives to
sequential interpreters for knowledge representation languages, and new
approaches to constructing user interfaces for these languages. These
observations arise out of experience with the representation language Omega
of Attardi, Simi, and Hewitt. The approach is motivated by a desire to
respond to Hewitt's "open systems" critique of logic-based systems, which
strives for systems that can deal with inconsistent beliefs, dynamically
revise beliefs, and are sensitive to allocation of resources.
VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up
from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks!