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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!bhyde
From: bhyde@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: RE: Expert Systems - (nf)
Message-ID: <578@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 9-Dec-83 22:30:46 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.578
Posted: Fri Dec  9 22:30:46 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Dec-83 01:10:41 EST
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#R:ncsu:-242000:inmet:11000004:000:1514
inmet!bhyde    Dec  3 22:10:00 1983


I would like to add to Gary's comments.  There are also issues of
scale to be considered.  Many of the systems built outside of AI
are orders of magnitude larger.  I was amazed to read that at one
point the largest OPS production system, a computer game called Haunt,
had so very few rules in it.  A compiler written using a rule based
approach would have a 100 times as many rules.  How big are the
AI systems that folks actually build?

The engineering component of large systems obscures the archtectural
issues involved in their construction.  I have heard it said that
AI isn't a field it is a stage of the problem solving process.

It seems telling that the ARPA 5 year speech recognition project
was successful not with Hearsay ( I gather that after it was too late
it did manage to met the proformance requirements ), but by Harpy.  Now
Harpy as very much like a signal processing program.  The "beam search"
mechinisms it used are very different than the popular approachs of
the AI comunity.  In the end it seems that it was an act of engineering,
little insite into the nature of knowledge gained.

The issues that caused AI and the rest of computing to split a few
decades ago seem almost quaint now.  Allan Newell has a pleasing paper
about these.  Only the importance of an interpreter based program
developement enviroment seem to continue.  Can you buy a work station
capable of sharing files with your 360 yet?

Forgive me I can't spell, if you can you feel free to feel superiour.
				ben hyde