HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ra@cs.brown.edu (Ronny Ashar)
Subject: testing
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Distribution: comp.ai
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 23:23:39 GMT

Just a test...

Xref: sparky comp.ai:3691 comp.ai.edu:452 comp.ai.neural-nets:3698
From: hk@informatik.uni-kiel.dbp.de (Heinz Knutzen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.ai.edu,comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: Has making a group for Genetic Algorithms been discussed?
Date: 30 Sep 92 18:08:54 GMT
Followup-To: comp.ai
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Kiel, FRG


I would be interested in such a group, too.

-- Heinz


----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Heinz Knutzen
 Institut fuer Informatik, Christian-Albrechts-Universitaet Kiel 
 Preusserstr. 1-9, D-2300 Kiel 1, Germany
 Telefon: ++49-431-5604-26, Fax: ++49-431-566143
 email: hk@informatik.uni-kiel.dbp.de
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Xref: sparky comp.ai:3664 comp.ai.edu:442 comp.ai.neural-nets:3673
From: nafpliot@ux2.cso.uiuc.edu (N.N.)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.ai.edu,comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Has making a group for Genetic Algorithms been discussed?
Date: 29 Sep 92 22:41:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.BvD31o.FwK
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

I don't want to go over old hash, but has the idea of a group for 
Genetic Algorithms been discussed?  Something like comp.ai.ga?  If not, 
can this be discussed?  I would like to know if interest in such a group
is widespread, or if limited to only a few people.


Thanks,

Nicholas Nafpliotis
nick-n@uiuc.edu
Illinois Genetic Algorithms Laboratory
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: schuette@quip.eecs.umich.edu (R. Wade Schuette)
Subject: Re: bboard to discuss genetic alg, connectionism, artificial life?
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 08:53:11 GMT

In article <1992Oct4.041704.6346@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> ginsberg@t.Stanford.EDU (Matthew L. Ginsberg) writes:
>
>>How about if we just lump all this stuff under comp.ai.hype?
>...imply that intelligence arises magically (or semi-magically) from some
>interesting computational mechanism.
>
>Unfortunately, much of the work on genetic algorithms falls into this
>category.  It is of the form, "I ran this experiment and here's what
>happened; I can't really tell if the result is good or bad, extensible
>or not, reproducible or not, but hey, it's cool stuff."  Cool it may
>be, but it is science fiction, not science.
>
>I would be delighted to be proved wrong, however.
>

Well, I think in your attack on hype you got carried away and 
discarded all empirical field work.  I'm opposed to theory that
has no observations to explain. People who design good experiments,
or, in some areas such as biology, simply walk outside their door
in a remote region and tell us all what they saw that was unexpected
provide the raw materials for theorists to process.  Particularly
if they saw something unexpected. 

If a good observer sees, say, "ball lightning", are you proposing
they should not share this with the rest of us, since they lack
a theoretical model for it?   Might as well return to Aristotle or
whoever and argue all day about why women have more teeth than men.

Given the rest of your article, I think what you REALLY are opposed
to is hype, ie, people who put one point on the graph and draw a 
quadratic through it and announce to the news that they have solved
everything and discovered God.  No?  People who take the time and
trouble to carry out an experiment and share the results, carefully
noting that they don't know what it means, but here it is, seem to
me to be providing a valuable service, and doing "science."

-- 
======================================================================
R. Wade Schuette        | 
+1 (313) 996-7479       |   "This sentence no verb." 
schuette@eecs.umich.edu |
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: timm@spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au (Tim Menzies)
Subject: UNSW AI SEMINAR: 9/10; Remote-controlled robots
Reply-To: timm@spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au (Tim Menzies)
Organization: none
Distribution: aus
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 04:58:50 GMT

               University of New South Wales

         School of Computer Science and Engineering

             Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

                       Seminar Series

TITLE:         Remote-Controlled Robot Systems

WHO:           Maziar Palhang
               Hossein Shiraz
               AI Lab, UNSW

WHEN:          1-2pm, Friday, 9th October, 1992.

ABSTRACT:      Robots are widely used instruments in  indus-
               try, laboratories, undersea, space and  other
               applications. One of the key   characteristic
               of   robots  which distinguish  them from the
               conventional  machines is their   ability  to
               be programmed.

               There are two kinds of robots,  preprogrammed
               robots   and  sensory  robots.  Preprogrammed
               robots are taught  to  perform  a  repetitive
               task  by  a  set  of prog- rammed  functions.
               Robot with  sensors, on the other hand,  have
               some  degree of intelligence  and flexibility
               in   interacting  with  their   environments.
               Various  sensing  capabilities  such as hear-
               ing, tactile, and vision have been  used  for
               robots.   Among  these sensing capabilities ,
               vision is  recognised as  the  most  powerful
               sense  for  extracting  information about the
               robot's surrounding environment.

               This seminar  will describe  the  realisation
               of  an  integrated  robot vision and  control
               system  implemented as a   joint  project  in
               the   Artificial  Intelligence  Laboratory at
               the University of New South Wales. This  sys-
               tem  has the ability to  recognise some  sim-
               ple objects, and perform the  specified  task
               entered by a user on a remote workstation.

WHERE:         Rm 212, Samuel Building,  University  of  New
               South Wales. Enter off Botany Street, stop at
               gate and  ask  grey  men  for  day  pass  and
               instructions.  Park  in  the main car park on
               your left.  The Samuels building is the  gray
               building   directly  behind  the  gates  with
               strange shield-like objects over the windows.

INQUIRIES:     timm@cs.unsw.oz.au (Tim Menzies)

--------------------------------------------------------------

                       PLEASE NOTE:

If you have a seminar that you would like to present at this
forum, contact Tim.
From: demers@cs.ucsd.edu (David DeMers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Artificial life
Date: 2 Oct 92 15:36:24 GMT
Article-I.D.: sdcc12.38890
Organization: =CSE Dept., U.C. San Diego

In article <klliou.717916988@milton> klliou@milton.u.washington.edu (Kan-Lee Liou) writes:
>Is there anyone familiar with the 'Artificial Life' mentioned in the latest Newsweek magazine?

Yes.

Check out the proceedings of the first two ALife conferences, edited
by Chris Langton:

Langton, Chris, ed. "Artificial Life" and "Artificial Life II",
Addison--Wesley
ISBNs 0-201-09356-1 and 0-201-52751-2. 

Alife II also comes with a video proceedings which includes
a fascinating segment of Roger Penrose as a boy assisting
his father in demonstrating some self-organizing mechanisms.

Dave

-- 
Dave DeMers			 ddemers@UCSD   demers@cs.ucsd.edu
Computer Science & Engineering	C-014		demers%cs@ucsd.bitnet
UC San Diego					...!ucsd!cs!demers
La Jolla, CA 92093-0114	(619) 534-0688, or -8187, FAX: (619) 534-7029
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.ai.edu,comp.ai.neural-nets
From: lmerkle@afit.af.mil (Laurence D. Merkle)
Subject: Re: Why not have a group for Genetic Algorithms?
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 02:55:05 GMT

In article <BvG8s4.KyJ@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca> eadengle@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca (Ed "Cynwrig" Dengler) writes:
>Greetings to all on the net!
>
>> <Previous message suppressed>
>
>I cannot understand why there is always an insistance on starting a new
>newsgroup at the drop of a pin (I am not picking on Tom Oates in particular,
>just that this was the nth message I had seen, and I just had to post). There
>is a perfectly good mailing list that is maintained about genetic algorithms,
>which I find much more convenient to read than newsgroups (there is a MUCH
>higher signal-to-noise ratio than in most unmoderated newsgroups).
>
>To subscribe, I quote out of the GA-List mail message:
>
>	Send submissions to GA-List@AIC.NRL.NAVY.MIL
>	Send adminstrative requests to GA-List-Request@AIC.NRL.NAVY.MIL
>
>So to subsribe, please send a "PLEASE SUBSCRIBE ME" type message to the
>GA-List_Request address.
>
>Thanks (for listening to my rantings and ravings),
>Ed
>
> <Postscript regarding fuzzy logic suppressed>

I was one of the previous respondents to the original suggestion
for a GA newsgroup, and I stand by my conviction that it is a
good idea.  GAs are only related to AI in that they are a new
and different way of solving problems.  Beyond that, there is no
reason to discuss them in an AI newsgroup.  Of course, I
recognize that many people will feel differently on that
point ...

I am very well aware of the excellent newsletter put out by the
NRL, and read avidly every issue published.  There are, however,
distinct advantages to the existence of a newsgroup which the
GA-List cannot provide.  The one which comes to mind immediately
is the greater potential for ongoing discussions, as opposed to
notices of publications and events.  Questions which appear in
the GA-List are usually answered in a subsequent issue, then no
longer discussed.  There is very little potential for dialogue.

As I mentioned above, I read the GA-List, and find it very
valuable.  But that does not mean there is not room for
additional communication.

-- 
------------------------------
Laurence D. Merkle, CAPT, USAF
Student, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Air Force Institute of Technology
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: billw@regal.cisco.com (William )
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.robotics,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Stiquito, A Small Nitinol-Propelled Robot
Date: 28 Sep 92 17:52:57 GMT
	<1992Sep25.091820.22814@news.cs.indiana.edu> <ws!p8+=.nagle@netcom.com>
Organization: cisco Systems, Inc.


    The document describes a rather simple version of the thing.  The
    "robot kit" actually yields a six-legged device with the three legs on
    each side tied together electrically.  The legs advance in a
    rachet-like fashion, under the control of a pair of manually-operated
    pushbuttons.  References are made to future VLSI-controlled versions,
    but that's not what you get.

I too was somewhat disappointed by the simplicity of the "robot" described,
even though I had already noticed the 20 cm/minute walking speed.

Further consideration tempered by reaction.  It's a neat device.
Furthermore, most "biometal" kits selling for about $30 and contain an inch
or two of nitinol wire.  The stiquito kit, with about 16 inches of wire, is
a "good deal".  (eg you get what you pay for, but that's not so bad...)
Stiquito (as described) is a clever mechanical engineering hack, with
interesting posibilities.


    A $100 kit with more smarts would be much more interesting.

To some.  I think that Mr Mills, and Indiana U, ought to contact that
toy company with all the neat "robot" kits.  There's money to be made.

I am curious about a couple of points:

	1) My Flexinol(tm) price list says the .004 inch wire used
	   by stiquito is "Special order".  Was it just left over from
	   "Sticky", or is there more behind the choice?

	2) Since the instructions imply that a 3V power source can
	   overheat the wire, using a 9V battery for the demo controller
	   seems perilous indeed.

BillW
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: ginsberg@t.Stanford.EDU (Matthew L. Ginsberg)
Subject: Re: bboard to discuss genetic alg, connectionism, artificial life?
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 16:25:54 GMT

In article <POLLACK.92Oct5115554@dendrite.cis.ohio-state.edu>
pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu suggests that AI be defined broadly enough
to include all sorts of new ideas, saying that:

> ... AI can be defined broadly, as the technological and
>computational side of cognitive science, with practitioners competing
>in all available methodologies.  Although there will be a continuous
>ebb and flow in the popularity of areas and concepts, with concomitant
>changes in supply and demand for people in those areas, the field as a
>whole will benefit by having a continuing stream of intellectual and
>cultural products. 

What you are proposing, I'm afraid, is that we let our funders decide
which areas of AI should prosper (the most trendy, probably) -- they
surely can't fund all of it.  But *we*, as the practicing scientists,
are certainly better placed to make that decision than they are.

My own criteria is that I think that science should be funded, and
alchemy shouldn't (to the extent that's possible in a prescientific
field such as ours).  I *don't* believe that only my kind of science
should be funded; that would be shortsighted.  But I am prepared to
try to help distinguish science from nonscience.

>AI can of course be narrowly defined as a set of approved
>methodologies, and when the products of those are exhausted, the field
>will definitely wither ...

My goal is to prune early the stuff that hasn't got a chance of
succeeding.  If I do so, hopefully what's left will eventually succeed
in the goal of constructing an intelligent artifact.  Why do you
believe that any specific methodology must eventually become
exhausted?

>>I don't believe in any of the approaches to AI that somehow
>>imply that intelligence arises magically (or semi-magically) from some
>>interesting computational mechanism.
>
>I do.  

Why?  Can you cite me an example from anywhere in science where this
sort of magical progress appeared?

We in AI have to make progress the old fashioned way.  We have to earn
it.

						Matt Ginsberg
From: morgan@unix.SRI.COM (Morgan Kaufmann)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Announcement of book on model based diagnosis
Keywords: diagnosis,book
Date: 5 Oct 92 18:55:27 GMT
Organization: SRI International, Menlo Park, CA



          Morgan Kaufmann announces the publication of

                READINGS IN MODEL-BASED DIAGNOSIS

  edited by Walter Hamscher, Luca Console and Johan de Kleer  

Automated diagnosis has always been an important AI problem not
only for its potential practical applications but because it
exposes issues common to all automated reasoning efforts and
presents real challenges to existing paradigms.  Diagnosis is
probably the single largest category of expert systems in use, a
substantial fraction of which are concerned with the diagnosis of
engineered systems and devices.  

This Readings book is about new artificial intelligence techniques
for the diagnosis of engineered systems based on a general purpose
model of the internal structure and behavior of the target device. 
These general purpose models can be constructed using standard AI
technologies such as predicate logic, frames, constraints and
rules.  Complementing the modeling technology are algorithms for
diagnosis that are also based on standard AI techniques such as
theorem proving, heuristic search, qualitative simulation, and
Bayes nets.  The 42 papers reprinted in the volume reflect the
recent maturation of the field and include the most seminal and
frequently referenced sources.  The editors have provided
introductions to the papers and an annotated bibliography of over
350 works.  

Readings in Model-based Diagnosis will be of interest to a wide
range of professionals in the AI and engineering communities
concerned with the building of diagnostic systems and with
understanding the technology underlying them.




                        TABLE OF CONTENTS


Chapter 1: Introduction to Model-based Diagnosis

Chapter 2: Logical Foundations

Chapter 3: The General Diagnostic Engine

Chapter 4: Fault Models

Chapter 5: Analog Systems

Chapter 6: Diagnosing Devices with State

Chapter 7: Hierarchies

Chapter 8: Relaxation of Diagnostic Assumptions

Chapter 9: Probabilistic Approaches

Annotated Bibliography
Credits
Author Index
Subject Index

ISBN 1-55860-249-6  $44.95 U.S.  $49.45 Intl   520 pages


Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc

Ordering Information:

     Shipping: In the U.S. and Canada, please add $3.50 for the
     first book and $2.50 for each additional for surface shipping;
     for surface shipments to all other areas, please add $6.50 for
     the first book and $3.50 for each additional book.  Air
     shipment available outside North America for $35.00 on the
     first book, and $25.00 on each additional book.  

     American Express, Master Card, Visa and personal checks drawn
     on US banks are accepted.

     MORGAN KAUFMANN PUBLISHERS, INC.
     Department E6   
     2929 Campus Drive, Suite 260
     San Mateo, CA 94403
     USA
     
     Phone: (800) 745-7323 (in North America)
          (415) 578-9911
     Fax: (415) 578-0672
     email: morgan@unix.sri.com


Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: cisneros@cs.ucf.edu (Jaime E. Cisneros)
Subject: Parallel or distributed knowledge bases
Organization: University of Central Florida, Orlando
  
             I would like to know if there is anyone
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 15:28:56 GMT

  Jaime Cisneros

P.S. Please send any information to cisneros@cs.ucf.edu.

Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.robotics,sci.electronics
From: osborn@socs.uts.edu.au (Tom Osborn)
Subject: Any OTHER Bots? (was Re: Stiquito, A Small Nitinol-Propelled Robot
Organization: Computing Sciences, Uni of Technology, Sydney.
Date: 30 Sep 92 06:21:01 GMT


Apart from these slow, phase-transition/wire devils, are there any other
small affordable robot kits on the market?

[I would have thought this was an FAQ, but haven't ever seen it].

Tomasso.
From: ski@atc.boeing.com (Chris Kacoroski,none)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Need Steven Brockman's email address (NCR Cooperative Computing)
Date: 28 Sep 92 15:14:14 GMT
Reply-To: ski@atc.boeing.com
Distribution: usa
Organization: Boeing - Product Manufacturing Knowledge Based Systems

Subject says it all.


Cheers,

Chris "ski" Kacoroski	"When we try to pick out anything by itself
ski@atc.boeing.com	 we find it connected to the entire universe"
							John Muir
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: tbc@col.hp.com (Tim Chambers)
Subject: RFI: U of TX "CYC" Project
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 06:23:35 GMT
Organization: HP Colorado Springs Division (PL 17)

This is a request for information about the "CYC" project headed by Greg
Lenat.  I saw it featured on the PBS "Machine that Changed the World" series
and am interested in learning more, especially whether there's a place for an
insomniac who wants to help with the project on a volunteer basis.


TIA,

Tim Chambers <tbc@col.hp.com>
(719) 590-5570
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Neo-dualism?
Summary: Answering the question...
Date: 25 Sep 92 14:50:35 GMT
Organization: TRW Systems Division, Fairfax VA

In article <1992Sep24.161248.15890@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
> In article <724@trwacs.fp.trw.com> erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin)
> writes:
> >On neodualism: Sir John Eccles suspects that the way the mind affects the
> >brain is by modifying the probability of vesicle release in the synaptic
> >bouton, where a quantum mechanical process is known to operate at the
> >femtosecond level to limit release to 0 or 1 vesicle. The probability of
> >release of one vesicle is on the order of 1/6 per calcium pulse.
> [disavowal cheerfully deleted]
> 
>      The 'mind' is a random number generator?
> 
>                             dale bass
No, this process appears to decouple the amount of stimulation for
follow-on neurons from the current supply of vesicles and transmitter in
the prior neuron.



















!@#$% dumb newsreader!!!!
Cheers,

-- 
Harry Erwin
Internet: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: shanks@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Mark Shanks)
Subject: Re: AI rights :-)
Keywords: TROTIO
Organization: Honeywell Air Transport Systems Division
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 20:01:10 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.142558.7013@decuac.dec.com> baker@westsd.dco.dec.com (Art Baker) writes:
>In article <1992Oct1.232114.1593@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard) writes:
>>Forgive me if this subject has already been discussed to death here...
>>
>>One major problem I foresee with the arrival of "true AI" is that
>>they may end up being slaves. Many people still believe that the
>>universe was created only 10,000 years ago, I think many religious
>>people will refuse to accept AI's as being equally sentient, and
>>instead decide that they are souless and thus ok to keep as slaves.
>
> Great, so now I have to worry about my toaster going on strike, or 
>the blender and the refrigerator griping about better working conditions...
>;-}
>

This phenomenon already occurs and is known as TROTIO: The Revolt Of
The Inanimate Objects. I guess the condition will have to be renamed
TROTSO: Sentient Objects, although the propensity for current failures
to happen at the most inconveniening opportunity indicates some level
of sentience already exists.

Mark Shanks
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Grounding
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 16:51:25 GMT

In article <717645108@sheol.UUCP> throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:
>As near as I can tell, "symbols" are purely in the mind of the beholder,
>and so to say that "humans don't interact with the rest of the world via
>symbols" and "computers do interact with rest of the world via symbols"
>are essentially meaningless.  There is no objective fact of the matter
>for either of these claims. 
>
>Similarly, the claim that computers "don't transduce" real-world stimuli
>and humans do seems very ill thought out.  Both transduce real-world
>stimuli.  There is no extremely strong difference I can see between a
>photoreceptor in the human eye firing or a key contact in a keyboard
>closing, or between a pixel turning on and a muscle fiber contracting. 

There's something of the same difference between two rocks banging together
and the Berlin Philharmonic.

For humans, the meaning of thousands of words is grounded directly in
rich sensory and motor experience.  The same could conceivably by true of
a robot.  What is experienced directly by the computer attached to a keyboard?  
One would be hard pressed to say that it even knows what clicking the keys 
feels like, since its experience has none of the information density of 
human touch.

How is it that words mean anything, in your view?