Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!lll-tis!afit-ab!icc!cbaron
From: cbaron@icc.afit.arpa (Christopher T. Baron)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: System Level support for AI stuff
Message-ID: <446@afit-ab.arpa>
Date: 26 Jul 88 21:42:34 GMT
Sender: news@afit-ab.arpa
Reply-To: cbaron@icc.UUCP (Christopher T. Baron)
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology; WPAFB, OH
Lines: 81

This is my first message on the net so please let me know if I have done 
something stupid ( in a nice way please.)  

Anyway, while I was returning to Dayton from Ami-Expo an idea came to me that 
the Amiga, being a multi-tasking system, could benifit from system level support
for several of the traditional AI type of functions.  By this I mean an 
inference engine, a state space search routine such as A*, and say a built
in natural language interface (text).

The idea is that by having a generalized support for say the inference engine
many software packages could provide AI like services without having to 
re-invent the inferencing wheel for each package.  All they would have to do
would be provide the rule and fact bases and the system inference engine 
could do the hard work.  This would make possible many services that are
desirable but too much effort to include at present.  A list of the ones
that sprang to mind are:

Intelligent task priority adjustment.  i.e. set the priority of your
word processor to a low value if you are working on something else.  this
could provide apparent performance increases.

AI type diagnositive program debugging.  with rule bases provided by the 
compiler maker new users could benifit from the expertise of experienced
programmers and significantly cut down on the learning curve.

Resident advisors for programming syntax, or style.  The compiler maker could
provide a rule base for observing the user entering source code and could
provide warnings for erroneous code.  

Global optimizing compilers.  Since only the rule base would have to be
generated making intellegent compilers would be easier.

Word processors with rule bases for English language syntax, and or 
advice on formats of different document types such as business letter,
scientific report etc.

Optimizing disk track and sector allocation.  By optimizing the head
tragectory to eliminate extra track jumps and waits for sector positioning
the DOS could improve in speed without any hardware changes.

Intellegent Facc like programs could observe disk usage and try to predict
what tracks and sectors will be needed next.  Or the type of disk operation
could be used to determine the allocation of read/write buffers, i.e. a 
program load operation doesn't need any write buffers and all of the sectors
of the program code should be read in without waiting for them to be requested.

The mind reels under the number of ways system and user perfomance could 
be improved.  Since the proposed inference engine would be well defined and
uniform, even third partys could produce say a rule base for debugging C
programs.  The result could be development of a whole new industry for
providing expert systems for all kinds of tasks from intellegent games to
stock market advisors implemented from within a spreadsheet or database.

My initial thoughts on implementation is that the services would be 
implemented as a shared library, with functions for:
  
   A backward and forward chaining inferencing engine
   A rule base compiler
   One or more state space searching algorithms
   system modification such as task priority modification
   the ability to start/suspend/kill tasks
   an i/o section for interface with the user i.e. a uniform query facility
   special alerts for output
   natural language parsing into a language independent form with
   system and/or user dictionarys

Programs could either utilize the functions directly or could start a sub-
task which would communicate through message ports.  

I'm sure there are many many possible uses for such facilities that I have
not thought of so let's here what people think.

Chris Baron
net address: cbaron@afit-ab.arpa
	     cbaron@galaxy.afit.af.mil
US mail : 201 Buel Ct
	  WPAFB, OH 45433


Sorry, no cute closing yet. I'll think of something.
P.S. if this looks like a message in comp.sys.amiga it is!