HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bestenld@vnet.ibm.com
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 15:50:44 CET
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Announcement of A.S.A.P (A Simple Approach to Problems)

 ASAP (A Simple Approach to Problems) is an easy-to-use knowledge
 acquisition tool that automatically generates consultable
 expert systems.

 ASAP is tailored for classification type expert systems like
 diagnostic, help desks, selection, disposition systems or
 process control.

 ASAP contains two knowledge editors:
 - A Graphical editor, allows design decision trees in an easy
   way on the screen
 - A Textual editor, that allows to enter the knowledge as
   "knowledge pieces", e.g. as possible causes of fault in
   a diagnostic system.
 Both editors can be used  for developing the same knowledge base.
 A translator converts the KB from on editors knowledge model
 to the other's.

 The ASAP Development environment generates a knowledge base,
 that is interpreted by the ASAP Runtime enviroment.
 The Runtime environment
 - contains the Inference engine
 - the user dialog screens
 - interfaces for external routines (e.g. database access)
 - Trace, Undo and Redo functions
 - is available in different versions:
   + as a C-written stand alone module
   + as TIRS module (TIRS = The Integrated Reasoning Shell - IBM
     Programm Product)
   + Other runtime version in any other AI or procedural Languages
     can be developped, as the ASAP KB format is open (e.g.
     a PROLOG Runtime version is under development).

 ASAP can easily be integrated into other software environments.

 It can integrate Pictures as explanations and has interfaces, that
 makes it easy to integrate Multimedia functions, as movies or sound.

 It runs under OS/2 2.0 (the Beta version also runs under OS/2 1.3).

 ASAP has been developed by the KBS groups of IBM Vimercate/Italy,
 IBM Sindelfingen/Germany and IBM Santa Theresa Lab/CA USA.

 The ASAP Beta Version is available. The Beta Test runs untill March 93.
 It involves IBM selected customers in that Beta Test.

 If you want more information on ASAP, send us a note incl. your
 Fax or mailing address.
 If you are interested in participating in the Beta Test, please
 tell us.


 Dietmar Bestenlehner
 IBM Germany  Sindelfingen Plant     PHONE: 49-12-4103  FAX: 49-12-4161
 CIM IM Manufacturing Concepts     IBMMAIL: DEIBMPVZ at IBMMAIL
 Knowledge Based Systems            BITNET: BESTENLD@vnet.bitnet
 Dep.6244  Adr.7030-62            INTERNET: BESTENLD@vnet.ibm.com
Xref: sparky comp.ai:5049 rec.arts.books:26429 misc.writing:4297 rec.arts.int-fiction:1294
From: steve@prd.co.uk (Steve Blinkhorn)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,rec.arts.books,misc.writing,rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Computer writes a book?
Date: 26 Jan 93 09:46:45 GMT
Organization: Psychometric Research & Development Ltd

I don't know about the book in question, but we have software that
*does* write stories and *could* write books.   At the moment its major
use is in building disaster simulators for crisis management training,
where it writes scenarios and then generates newspaper articles and
the like.   It delights in the name of SCIROCCO, which of course is an
acronym: Source Code Integrator for Report Origination with
C-Compilable Objects.   A feature on its use appeared in Chemical &
Engineering News around the third week in September 1992.

No, I'm not going to reveal how it's done, but if there is interest I
will post a sample binary, which uses a limited (and early) version to
write 300-word romantic stories in a send-up of the style known in the
UK as Mills & Boon.   It can write literally millions of variations,
took about four hours to write and it occupies all of 30Kbytes.
It takes less than a second to run.

Or if there's an ftp site that would like a copy?

BTW, would someone please advise on preferred encoding method for
MS-DOS binaries?   I have a hate-hate relationship with MS-DOS........


-- 
Steve Blinkhorn <steve@prd.co.uk>
From: hsr4@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Frawley or P-Shapiro
Date: 26 Jan 93 13:06:46 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620

In article <RJB.93Jan21104800@rocket.tempo.nj.att.com>, rjb@allegra.att.com (Ron Brachman) writes:
> 	<1993Jan20.200631.11415@vax.oxford.ac.uk>
> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
> Lines: 7
> In-Reply-To: hsr4@vax.oxford.ac.uk's message of 20 Jan 93 20:06:31 GMT
> 
> Try gps0@gte.com for Gregory.
> 
> --
> Ron Brachman
> AT&T Bell Laboratories
> Murray Hill, NJ  07974
> rjb@research.att.com

Many thanks - although I was replying to doheony, who was the original enquirer.
PB
From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Natural Language newsgroup
Date: 27 Jan 1993 05:33:12 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity von Uniland, College Park
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: delta.eng.umd.edu
Originator: clin@delta.eng.umd.edu


     The formal request to set up a natural language newsgroup has been
made in news.announce.newgroups, and hopefully, this announcement
will be available in a day's time.   It will be crossposted to this
group.   However, discussion should be moved to news.groups concerning
the newsgroup.   For the time being, I have titled the group, 
comp.ai.natural-language.   In about two or so weeks, if there is no
consensus on what to call the group, I will send those who have sent
me e-mail or posted into news.groups, a request to vote for one
of the names.   

    If you are interested in such a newsgroup, and do not see your name
listed in the list given in news.groups, please e-mail me.   I will
update the list on a mostly daily basis.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu
From: konolige@ai.sri.com (Kurt Konolige)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: NCAI Robot Competition and Exhibition
Date: 26 Jan 93 01:19:40 GMT
Distribution: comp.ai,comp.robotics
Organization: SRI International, Menlo Park, CA

There will be a robotics exhibition and competition at the National
Conference on AI this July in Washington, D.C.  A semifinal draft of
the competition rules, along with entry forms, is available by sending
a message to robocomp@ai.sri.com.

Cheers --Kurt
From: chen@kuri.ces.kyutech.ac.jp (Chen Ke)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Wanted help: context-based vision
Keywords: computer vision, neural nets, integration of context information
Date: 27 Jan 93 13:21:56 GMT
Followup-To: comp.ai.neural-nets
Distribution: comp
Organization: Kyushu Institute of Technology, Iizuka, JAPAN.

Hi, everybody,

At present, I am interested in solving computer vision problems using contextual
information. Resently, I investegated the information about this topic and only
one paper is found for my requiring. This paper appears in IEEE Trans. PAMI,
Vol.13,No.10, 1991, titled "context-based vision: recognizing objects using
information from both 2-d and 3-d imagery". In this work, authors intented to
make the use of contextual information a central issues. For this purpose,
a system was designed to identify and use context as an integral part of 
recognition. 
As a result, I want to know if there is any work similar to this one.
Furthermore, is there any work about dealing with contextual information
problem by employing neural networks(not limited in the field of computer
vision)? By the way, I wish to know if there is any 3-d object recognition
system developed by means of neural networks techniques.

regards,

Ke Chen  < chen@kuri.ces.kyutech.ac.jp >
Prof. M. Ishikawa Research Group
Dept. of Control Engineering and Science
Kyushu Institute of Technology
Iizuka, Fukuoka 820, Japan
Tel: +81-948-29-7738
Fax: +81-948-29-7709



Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: rymon@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Ron Rymon)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: New Problems in IJCAI Reviewing (long)
Keywords: shoemaker, IRS, human frailties, machine perfection
Date: 22 Jan 93 00:04:26 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania


 And of course researchers could then use this classifier to *generate*
acceptable papers. That would require even less work on their part. Well,
they may find themselves unemployed, but this can be viewed favorably
because then they (maybe I should switch to WE) become more productive
members of society.

 Sorry, couldnt resist.

-Ron
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer and Information Science               Tel. (215) 898-0326 (office)
University of Pennsylvania                          (215) 626-0794 (home)
Suite C, Rm 419, 3401 Walnut St, Phila, PA 19104    (215) 898-0587 (fax)
From: reiter@eagle.ed.ac.uk (Ehud Reiter)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Conf vs Journals (Was IJCAI Reviewing)
Date: 24 Jan 93 13:46:58 GMT
Reply-To: reiter@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Ehud Reiter)
Organization: Dept AI, Edinburgh University, Scotland

In article <POLLACK.93Jan21181428@dendrite.cis.ohio-state.edu> pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu writes:
>The importance with which we take publication decisions for AI
>conferences is phenomenal ...  Because of an early dearth of
>refereed journals in the field, many people have come to believe, and
>stake their career on, the idea that rapid publication of notes in the
>conferences should count as much as archival journal articles.

This point has been made before (even on this newsgroup), and people in general
seem to agree that `it would be nice' if finished work appeared in journals,
while conferences were reserved for work-in-progress, speculative ideas, etc.
Unfortunately, nothing seems to change.  The situation even seems to be
getting worse in some respects, e.g., in their justification for their
policy against multiple submissions, the IJCAI committee have now specifically
said that they regard IJCAI papers as `archival' publications of finished work,
similar to journal articles.

Within my own subfield of Natural Language Processing, the main journal,
COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS, has been encouraging people to submit short
`squibs' of roughly conference-paper size and with conference-paper
turnaround times - but I don't see many of these appearing.  Of the two
best-known conferences in the field, one, ACL, takes a selective approach
(25% acceptance rate, 35 papers in all), while the other, COLING, takes a
more `anything vaguely plausible is accepted' approach (50% acceptance rate,
200 papers in all); and although COLING is probably more in line with the
general idea of what conferences should be like in scientific domains,
ACL has become and remains a lot more prestigious.

I suspect that in the end AI will evolve more towards the scientific norm, but
it will be by a haphazard process pushed by external factors (e.g., standards
of tenure review committees), not a carefully planned change.
--
						Ehud Reiter
						(e.reiter@edinburgh.ac.uk)
From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Natural Language newsgroup
Date: 25 Jan 1993 16:47:59 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity von Uniland, College Park
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: harmonic.eng.umd.edu
Originator: clin@harmonic.eng.umd.edu


    So far, we've gathered about four votes for the newsgroup (with me
and Jaime) that makes six.    No opposition, so far.   This is, of course,
just a sample tally, and does NOT represent the actual vote.   I want to
make sure that we get a good number of people interested.   If there
are any other newsgroups that you think the charter should be posted
to, I give permission to repost the article in any other group you
deem to be important.   If you have a local computer science site,
or one that deals with natural language, please repost the previous
message I had which had a sample charter.   Thanks for your help.

    Again, for those of you who might think I'm an NL guru, I am not,
so queries that involve natural language that are technical in nature
should be posted to this newsgroup.

    Send me e-mail at clin@eng.umd.edu if you would vote for or against
a comp.ai.nat-lang (or natural-lang).   Assuming support is reasonable,
I will contact Jaime Cisneros (and anyone else who might like to help)
and we will go through the formal procedure of trying to set up this
newsgroup.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu
Xref: sparky comp.ai:5098 rec.arts.books:26589 misc.writing:4347 rec.arts.int-fiction:1317
From: bill@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.ai,rec.arts.books,misc.writing,rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Computer writes a book?
Date: 29 Jan 93 11:38:50 +1300
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <1k56lgINNc5q@shelley.u.washington.edu>, twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin) writes:
> In article <kxp36!l@rpi.edu> kasprj@rpi.edu writes:
>>In article <1993Jan25.163029.1901@seas.smu.edu>, pedersen@seas.smu.edu (Ted Pedersen) writes:
>>|> 
>>|> I think this is a stunt. I don't really believe a computer program
>>|> wrote this book. However, if anyone has any information about this
>>|> book or the author that would give this some credibility I would like
>>|> to hear about it. Comment on the general idea would be interesting 
> 
> 
>> There is, in fact, some serious research going on in the area of 
>>computers writing books. Here at Rensselaer Polytutescrew Incorporated,
> 
> B
> What I want to know is, why does anyone *want* a computer to write a book? 

Well one reason would be that once computers can churn out mass-market books
such as Mills and Boon romance novels, humans would no longer be able to
compete because the computers would be far cheaper. Humans would then be
forced to turn their creative talents to other kinds of writing, be more
unpredictable and perhaps invent many more new styles of writing as well.
I look forward to the day. Especially for TV scripts. I'm convinced there
is a computer out there already churning out scripts for American TV
programs. (Hollywood sub-plot 2.1 : The hero always marries the heroine).
> 
> (OK; why does anyone want a computer to do anything?)  
> 
> Consider the scarifying number of us out here who are willing to do 
> it without programming, task forces, bodies of researchers supported 
> by grants and salaries, or indeed, the least little bit of encouragement.
> 
>>professor Selmer Bringsjord has been working on several different projects
>>aimed at getting a computer program to produce meaningful stories. Its 
> 
> Professor Bringsjord should be working on a project aimed at getting 
> a warm-blooded human being to produce meaningful stories. 
> 
> --Barbara
> 
> 
> 
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: kampf@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Katharina Kampf)
Subject: test
Organization: Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 15:17:10 GMT
Distribution: dnet


sorry - this is a test only !
From: pitula@holmes.crim.ca (Kristina Pitula)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: MACIE: a connectionist expert system inference engine
Date: 21 Jan 93 16:35:14 GMT
Reply-To: pitula@holmes.crim.ca
Organization: CRIM

I would like to get any information on the status of MACIE: a connectionist 
expert system inference engine in use around '88. It is mentionned in an 
article by:

	Gallant, Stephen I.: "Connectionist Expert Systems",
	Communications of the ACM, vol. 31, no. 2, February 1988.

I am wondering if anyone knows anything about its current status: e.g. further
work done, applications developped with it, new research findings, etc.

You may send replies to:  pitula@crim.ca
Thanks!
From: theodore-michael@yale.edu (Dr. Disorder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Abductive Reasoning?
Date: 25 Jan 1993 22:03:56 -0500
Organization: Yale University Science & Engineering UNIX(tm), New Haven, CT 06520-2158
NNTP-Posting-Host: minerva.cis.yale.edu

Could some kind soul out there in net-land email a definition of abductive
reasoning, as well as a sentence or two that describes its application?
Thanks very much,
	Michael

-- 
Practice random acts of randomness.........
		theodore-michael@cs.yale.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: rwab1@cl.cam.ac.uk (Ralph Becket)
Subject: MCC Corp. ftp site?
Reply-To: Ralph.Becket@cl.cam.ac.uk
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 12:36:53 GMT

Hi,

I'm trying to get hold of a number of papers (mostly about CYC) which have
come out of MCC Corp. Does anyone know if MCC has an ftp site with these
papers that I could reach (or, indeed, if any other ftp site has these
papers available.)

Many thanks,
	Ralph
Xref: sparky comp.ai:5099 rec.arts.books:26594 misc.writing:4349 rec.arts.int-fiction:1318
From: wbdst+@pitt.edu (William B Dwinnell)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,rec.arts.books,misc.writing,rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Computer writes a book?
Date: 27 Jan 93 18:15:33 GMT
Followup-To: comp.ai
Organization: University of Pittsburgh


Alan:   I'm not sure I understand your assertion that "This [attempting
to get a program to understand stories] would seem to be the neccessary
leap before a computer were to write a story."  Programming a sentence
generator which produces output which makes sense is a simple matter, yet
such systems do not have to (and generally can't) understand natural
language sentences, not even their own output.  Why couldn't this be
extnded to complete stories?
From: vbarr@pepper.rutgers.edu (Valerie Barr)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: AAAI bibliography service
Keywords: new address?
Date: 26 Jan 93 21:17:01 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


Is there a new address for the AAAI bibliograph service at Carnegie
Mellon?  My attempts to use the old address (am77@vma.cc.cmu.edu)
result in only bounced mail.  Thanks.

Valerie Barr
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------
Valerie Barr

vbarr@mhc.mtholyoke.edu		vbarr@paul.rutgers.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 02:38:42 GMT

In article <1jvevlINN4va@cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu> 
	chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:

[Discussion: 
	Searle -> dogs conscious? -> dog pain -> dog beliefs, desires, &c.]

>That is a different question.  You are no longer asking if dogs are
>conscious, but about the complexity of and variety of the objects of
>their consciousness ([...]).  I haven't read Searles' book, but
>from what you said about it it seems that all he is saying is that
>dogs are conscious.

	This raises an interesting question:  suppose we established
(somehow) that a particular species experienced pain, but otherwise had no 
mental life -- no other aspects of what we normally gather under the
"consciousness" umbrella.  Would it be accurate to call these creatures
conscious?  If not, then arguing that a dog feels pain does not suffice
to establish that dogs are conscious.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 00:49:59 GMT

In article <1993Jan24.213358.10067@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>In article <1juactINN4ph@cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu> chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan24.024230.5977@sophia.smith.edu> orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
>>>Searle says that "it seems to me a well-attested empirical fact
>>>that dogs are conscious."  [The Rediscovery of the Mind, p.74.]
>>
>>Well, do you think dogs feel pain when you, say, cut them with a razor
>>blade without anesthetics?  It seems that they generally give lots of
>>incontrovertible evidence of being in pain when something like this
>>happens.
>
>	I agree: dogs, perhaps even spiders, feel pain.  But the situation
>is not so clear to me with other aspects of mental life.  Do they have
>desires?  Do they have beliefs?  Do they recall the distant past?
>Do they have streams of consciousness?

Do they need to in order to answer your question. Doesn't pain alone
count as an existence proof?
-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
From: orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Smith College, Northampton, MA, US
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 11:55:04 GMT

In article <1993Jan25.023842.11756@sophia.smith.edu> I wrote:
>	This raises an interesting question:  suppose we established
>(somehow) that a particular species experienced pain, but otherwise had no 
>mental life [...].  Would it be accurate to call these creatures conscious?

	Let me add to this thought.  The night after I last sprained my
ankle, I had great difficulty sleeping from the pain, but I managed a
few hours of fitful sleep.  It seems clear to me the pain continued while
I was asleep.  Searle argues for this convincingly in "The Rediscovery of
the Mind."  My body responded to the pain even while asleep, e.g., by not
attempting to roll over.  So one can have unconscious pains.
	It seems therefore that establishing that an animal experiences
pain does not establish that it is conscious.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: tim@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au (Tim Roberts)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 23:33:02 GMT

michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:

>In addition, unless one is a panpsychist, it is necessary to speculate
>that there is *some* discontinuity in (early) evolution, since I would
>think that most folks would agree a bacterium is not conscious.

Why ?

("Most folks agree" is not generally considered a valid scientific test).

Tim



-- 
Tim S Roberts
School of Applied Science                 tel:     051-226467
Monash University (Gippsland)             fax:     051-221348
Switchback Road
Churchill                                 email:   tim@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au
Victoria 3842
Australia
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 22:58:50 GMT

In article <erwin.728161566@trwacs> erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:
>I've been oblivious to this discussion up to now, but I'm not sure that
>the data are as presented here.
>
>Central nervous systems of the chordate type are known from chordates,
>and tunicate larvae and are strongly suspected in primitive hemichordates
>(Pikaia).
>
>Plants and unicellular eucaryotes have the power of movement to some
>degree.
>
>Taxonomy has to do with reproductive isolation, which can be behavioral
>and locational in addition to genetic.
>
>Apes are known to be conscious.
>
>So where is the evidence that evolution is discontinuous?

Well, the stuff life evolved out of certainly wasn't conscious.  Isn't  
*this* a discontinuity?

- michael


Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
From: dave@tygra.Michigan.COM (David Conrad)
Subject: Re: Searle on animal consciousness
Organization: CAT-TALK Conferencing System
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 10:51:51 GMT

In article <1jvevlINN4va@cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu> chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:
>[H]aving goals (which is
>the same as desires, I think) and knowledge (or beliefs) is orthogonal
>to being conscious, I think.

I wouldn't say that it's orthogonal.  Orthogonal implies not only that one
could have goals and knowledge without being conscious, but also that one
could be conscious without having goals and knowledge.  Do you assert this
latter proposition?  I think it would describe an intelligence quite
different from our own, if it were even possible.

Rather, I would say that having goals and knowledge is a necessary, but
not a sufficient, requirement for consciousness.

David R. Conrad
-- 
=  CAT-TALK Conferencing Network, Computer Conferencing and File Archive      =
-  1-313-882-2209, 300bps-14400bps, V.32/V.32bis/TurboPEP New users use 'new' - 
=  as a login id.  AVAILABLE VIA PC-PURSUIT!!! (City code "MIDET")            =
   E-MAIL Address: dave@Michigan.COM
Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:7414 sci.philosophy.tech:4991