Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!oravax!daryl
From: daryl@oravax.UUCP (Steven Daryl McCullough)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: What Has Traditional AI Accomplished?
Summary: Examples of successful natural language generation.
Message-ID: <1717@oravax.UUCP>
Date: 12 Oct 90 21:45:39 GMT
References: <69367@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <1990Oct12.192833.7783@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Organization: Odyssey Research Associates, Ithaca NY
Lines: 41

In article <1990Oct12.192833.7783@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, cpshelley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (cameron shelley) writes:
> In article <1712@oravax.UUCP> daryl@oravax.UUCP (Steven Daryl McCullough) writes:

> >This [natural language generation]
> >is much more successful than language translation, since translation
> >requires a high degree of understanding of the two languages.
> >
> >Daryl McCullough
> 
> This is not true, at least as far as I know.  All forms of machine language
> 'use' are not very well funded but I don't think generation has really
> begun replacing translation, so much as complementing it.  Translation
> has been focusing more on the harder task of  dealing with real texts in 
> identifiable genres, while generation could be used as you describe, I
> just don't know of any examples.  Perhaps it is different in the 'real
> world'.

I speak from the experience in my company. We have had a number of
successes at machine generation, but translation is beyond us. Some
examples:

(1) the GOSSIP system, which takes an operating system audit log
and generates a narrative (in English) description of the system usage
for the purpose of identifying suspicious behavior.

(2) the JOYCE system, which takes a graphical design of a large
distributed classified system and generates text documenting the
system and describing possible "covert channels" through which
classified information might be leaked.

Other projects I know of that are not connected with our company:

(3) a former consultant has a company, based in Montreal, which has
been generating weather reports from weather data in several
languages.

(4) the Boyer-Moore theorem prover (developed at the University of
Texas at Austin) has a program which automatically generates an
English description of the reasoning used in a proof.

Daryl McCullough