HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tmr@cs.bham.ac.uk (Tim Read)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Info about AISB?
Date: 15 Nov 92 10:34:43 GMT
Distribution: comp.ai
Organization: School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK

>>>>> On 14 Nov 92 03:37:32 GMT, f31972s@puukko.hut.fi (Markku Verkama) said:
> Does anyone out there have info about the AISB meeting which   is,
> I think, organized by the Society for Artificial Intelligence and
> Simulation of Behavior? Please reply by mail as I have a limited
> possibility to read these news. Thanks

I will put this on the net as well as replying by email as others may wish
to know...

The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of
Behaviour will hold its 9th bi-annual conference at the University of
Birmingham from 29 March to 2 April 1993.

The theme for invited papers was (submission date has gone) "Prospects for
AI as the general science of intelligence", and speakers include Prof David
Hogg (Leeds) on "Prospects for computer vision", Prof Allan Ramsay (Dublin)
on "Prospects for natural language processing by machine", Prof Glyn
Humphreys (Birmingham) on "Prospects for connectionism - science and
engineering" and Prof Ian Somerville (Lancaster) on "Prospects for AI in
systems design".

To receive information as it becomes available about the programme,
accommodation, meals etc. please email aisb93-delegates@cs.bham.ac.uk or
write to:

AISB'93 (delegates)
School of Computer Science
The University of Birmingham
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK
Telephone (021) 414 3711, Fax (021) 414 4281

Programme chair: Aaron Sloman, local organiser: Donald Peterson
--
    --------------------------------------------------------------------
    Tim Read, Email: tmr@cs.bham.ac.uk, The Attention and Affect Project
    Room LG23, School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham,
    B15 2TT, England, Phone: +44-(0)21-414-4766, Fax: +44-(0)21-414-4281
    --------------------------------------------------------------------
Xref: sparky comp.ai:4353 comp.ai.edu:541 sci.cognitive:714
From: rapaport@acsu.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.ai.edu,sci.cognitive
Subject: Re: B.S. Degree
Date: 20 Nov 92 15:21:17 GMT
Organization: State University of New York at Buffalo/Comp Sci

In article <1992Nov19.232802.22588@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com> shanks@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Mark Shanks) writes:
>
>Well, the corporations think it matters. Go knock on the door at
>GM, McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, or Honeywell (and these are the ones
>I know of) with a BA, and you will be given the bum's rush. It's
>a corporate "cookbook" thing. No BS - no job.

The companies I've talked to say that they don't distinguish between the
degrees; so, probably some do and some don't.

>
>>I urge most students to go for the BA, since it requires them to know
>>something besides CS and math.
>
>And BOY, do they need it. While at McDonnell, I was stunned to hear
>the University of Missouri - Rolla grads brag that they never had
>to read a book or write a paper. None of that "fuzzy study" shit
>for _these_ geniuses. And it showed.

This is an interesting inconsistency between your first comment and your
second:  companies want BS degrees, but they also want the "liberal
education" that tends more to come with the BA degree; do I understand
you correctly?

>
			William J. Rapaport
			Associate Professor of Computer Science
			and
			Center for Cognitive Science

Dept. of Computer Science||internet:  rapaport@cs.buffalo.edu
SUNY Buffalo		 ||bitnet:    rapaport@sunybcs.bitnet
Buffalo, NY 14260	 ||uucp: {rutgers,uunet}!cs.buffalo.edu!rapaport
(716) 645-3193, 3180     ||fax:  (716) 645-3464
From: mgarbutt@uctvax.uct.ac.za
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: The Use of AI in EPSS
Date: 19 Nov 92 11:11:05 +0200
Organization: University of Cape Town


I am currently studying towards a BCom Honours degree in Informatin Systems
through the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

In partial fulfilment of the degree I must present a Technical Report on an
area of research. My topic isElectronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS) with
special interest in the use of AI. Expert Systems are currently used but I am
sure there is great possibilities for CBR and neural nets.

The idea behind EPSS is improving the performance of workers by in-context
on-the-job just-in-time support in such a manner that it leads to learning by
the worker. This is a complex process but ispossibly a solution to thee
predicament here in SA where we have the majority of the population with none
or very low skills levels.

Has any research been done ? or is there any interest being generated ?

Please contact me through Internet at  :  mgarbutt@uctvax.uct.ac.za

Regards

Malcolm Garbutt


Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: yjlee@cs.tamu.edu (Yuunjung J Lee)
Subject: Seeking references on theorem proving under uncertainty
Organization: Computer Science Department, Texas A&M University
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 06:29:04 GMT

Hi, AI-Netters;

I am interested in finding out references on
theorem proving under uncertainty. I have already
had a paper by Dubois and Prade published on IJCAI-87.
Any pointers/comments are more than welcome. Please
send to yjlee@cs.tamu.edu. Thanks in advance.

Jonathan Lee
Computer Science Department
Texas A&M University
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: ed@cwis.unomaha.edu (Ed Stastny)
Subject: Racter?
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 08:30:16 GMT

I've been looking for ages for what I believe is "Racter"...an AI
program that supposedly composed fictional text (albeit somewhat
disjunct and bizarre).  I read about it in Omni and I guess it wrote a
book called "The Policeman's Beard Is Half Constructed".
 
Is there anyone out there that knows about it?  Was it a fake?  Is
"Policeman's..." available anywhere?  Is it possible to still get a copy
of this program?
 
Are there similar or better programs available?  
 
Is there someone out there with a copy of Racter (or like program) that
could send me a copy of the output?

Thanks....
 
...e

"
--
::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::|   ed   |  death 
  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  |  @cwis |  comes 
::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::|.unomaha|    too 
  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  |  .edu  |   soon 
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.ai.genetic,rec.games.programmer
From: keithd@versyss.com (Keith Doyle)
Subject: Re: Games and genetic algorithms
Reply-To: keithd@versyss.UUCP (Keith Doyle)
Organization: VERSYSS Incorporated, Torrance, California
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 17:52:15 GMT
Keywords: genetic algorithms 

In article <1992Nov11.131739.19137@athena.mit.edu> acgoldis@athena.mit.edu (Andrew C Goldish) writes:
>I have written several computer games using the Borland Pascal compiler and
>would like to teach the computer to learn from its own mistakes when it plays
>against a human opponent (a la War Games).  I am going to try to insert a
>genetic algorithm into the board evaluation subroutine so that the game
>strategies whose parameters produce the most successful games survive to

One problem you may have with this approach, is that it could take a fairly
long time for it to learn, and in the meantime it could be pretty boring
for the human opponent.

One problem is, if you mutate an "offspring" of the parent evaluation
DNA, it may play worse than it's parent.  Normally, you would compare
the success of the two "organisms" until you determine which one should
be preserved and which one should die out, giving way to new organisms.
This could mean it might play several lousy games before it decides a
particular organism should be edited out.  Not a lot of fun I expect.

However, you may have more success if you create an entire population
of organisms, all of which "vote" with regards to a given move, and
you cast the computer's move based on the majority.  Once the outcome
is decided (and you could even have intermediate goals which can be
used during the game as well), you can "weigh" each of the organisms
performances.  In time, even an organism who consistently votes
wrong (or votes wrong most of the time) will have a weight adjusted
to take this into account, which in effect will turn his vote around
(the program can ultimately consider his vote as a "don't make this
move").  This approach is probably better than a single organism
because the population will evolve a little more slowly and once it
is trained to a reasonable level will tend not to all of a sudden
play a really goofy game due to a single mutation that sends it off
the map.

Another problem may be that if the game is being played by a variety
of human opponents, the program may adapt to one persons playing
style, and then begin to forget some of that training if subsequently
played by another opponent for awhile, as it begins to adapt to the
new opponent.  There may be steps you can take to avoid this, but
I'm not sure what they are.  One approach would be to keep a record
of past game moves, and recheck the organism's voting records to see
that they're still basically on track.  Problem is, as soon as the
population changes enough to vary a strategy in an old game, you
can't play out the rest of the game (the remainder of the opponents 
moves no longer apply) to determine if it is a beneficial or
detrimental modification.

At any rate, good luck.  I expect you'll learn some interesting
things re: genetic algorithms in the process.

Keith
From: axs@cs.bham.ac.uk (Aaron Sloman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: It is AI when...
Date: 14 Nov 92 13:00:13 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK

clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:

> Date: 12 Nov 92 20:22:05 GMT
> Organization: University of Central Florida
    ....
> If you can discern how it works it's not truly intelligent behavior.
> You'll know its truly intelligent when you can't figure out how it
> works.


This implies that
EITHER

    (a) human beings, chimpanzees, squirrels (and other things) are
    not truly intelligent

OR
    (b) we'll never understand how they work

I see no reason to believe either, though understanding how they
work is very difficult and is likely to take many more years. I see
current AI/Cognitive science as being at a stage that could be
compared with Galileo's understanding of physics: i.e. some
important new ideas have emerged, but there`s still a very long way
to go.

Aaron
-- 
Aaron Sloman, School of Computer Science,
The University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, England
EMAIL   A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk  OR A.Sloman@bham.ac.uk
Phone: +44-(0)21-414-3711       Fax:   +44-(0)21-414-4281
Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:6838 sci.logic:2095
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.logic
Subject: Re: Self-Reference and Paradox (was Re: Human intelligence...)
From: system@CODEWKS.nacjack.gen.nz (Wayne McDougall)
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 09:26:04 NZST
Organization: The Code Works Limited, PO Box 10 155, Auckland, New Zealand

pratt@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Vaughan R. Pratt) writes:

> In article <1992Nov14.151559.13227@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCu
> 
> The simplest instance of the proposal arises when one asks why the
> universe does not blink out when the output of an inverter is connected
> back to its input.  The answer, at least for those inverters that come
> in little plastic sixpacks with 14 pins, is that their inputs and
> outputs quickly reach a compromise in the neighborhood of 2.5 volts
> before the big bang has had much of a chance to get under way.  Any
> explanation of this behavior must clearly go beyond just the two truth
> values 0 volts and 5 volts appearing in the explanation of the normal
> behavior of inverters.
> 
I don't know about the Big Bang, but has anyone else heard of 
the apocryphal story of an early computer avec valves et al, which was 
inadvertently given a similar problem, and almost shook itself to death 
as it oscillated from true to false.

-- 
  Wayne McDougall, BCNU
  This .sig unintentionally left blank.

Hello! I'm a .SIG Virus. Copy me and spread the fun.
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.logic
From: petry@pythagoras.math.washington.edu (David Petry)
Subject: Re: Self-Reference and Paradox (was Re: Human intelligence...)
Organization: University of Washington, Mathematics, Seattle
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 00:02:27 GMT

In article <BxwzLy.H3E@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>
>In article <1992Nov18.051456.24550@u.washington.edu>, petry@corona.math.washington.edu (David Petry) writes:
>|> In article <BxtBwx.LvH@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>|> >
>|> >In article <1992Nov14.151559.13227@oracorp.com>, daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>|> >
>|> >|> 
>|> >|>     This sentence is false.
>|> >|> 
>|> >|> refers to an unrestricted notion of falsity, and is therefore
>|> >|> meaningless. We can replace "false" by a restricted notion of falsity
>|> >
>|> >This sort of thing has been tried before. One problem is that the displayed
>|> >sentence is *not* meaningless in any normal sense of this term.  We
>|> >know perfectly well what it means -- and that's the problem.
>|> 
>|> Well, we think we know perfectly well what it (the paradoxical sentence)
>|> means, but we humans use non-monotonic logic.  That is, we are willing to 
>|> reject our previous conclusions in light of new knowledge.
>|> 
>|> For example,  if you found out that I had just written down the sentence
>|> "2+2 = 5" and was pointing to it while I exclaimed "This sentence is false",
>|> you would quickly change your belief about the meaning of that exclamation.
>|> 
>|> I've always felt that that observation is crucial to the understanding of
>|> the so-called paradoxes.
>
>Really?  How?  What you point to is that the meaning of a sentence is
>dependent upon context.  My claim remains that given the original
>context of the example (in which the subject of the sentence refers
>to the sentence itself), we know what the sentence means.  The fact
>that the sentence *could* mean something else in *another* context
>hardly allows us to escape the paradox.


The question is, how do you know that in the original context the subject
refers to the sentence itself?  The answer is that you have been taught
to "see" paradox.  Many, perhaps most, people that have not been taught
to see the paradox will ask the question "What sentence is being referred
to?" when they see the sentence "This sentence is false."

Anyways, I find that most people who defend the paradoxes have at their
command laws of logic which I never even imagined could exist.  I will
probably drop out of this discussion.


David Petry

Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: It is AI when...
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 15:11:36 GMT

In article <28221@castle.ed.ac.uk> cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <Stafford-131192111721@stafford.winona.msus.edu> Stafford@Vax2.Winona.MSUS.EDU (John Stafford) writes:
>
>>There is an interesting philosophy which asserts that one cannot
>>completely know the tool which is knowing.
>
>I'm saving up statements like this to feed to the first artificial
>intelligence with philosophical pretensions, in the hope that they
>might cause it to explode, or even to believe them!

Yes, but are you prepared to wait that long? :-)

-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:6812 sci.logic:2063
From: gudeman@cs.arizona.edu (David Gudeman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.logic
Subject: Re: Self-Reference and Paradox (was Re: Human intelligence...)
Date: 16 Nov 92 18:23:53 GMT
Followup-To: comp.ai.philosophy
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson

In article  <BxtBwx.LvH@unx.sas.com> Gary Merrill writes:
]In article <1992Nov14.151559.13227@oracorp.com>, daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
]|> 
]|>     This sentence is false.
]|> 
]|> refers to an unrestricted notion of falsity, and is therefore
]|> meaningless. We can replace "false" by a restricted notion of falsity
]
]This sort of thing has been tried before.  One problem is that the displayed
]sentence is *not* meaningless in any normal sense of this term.  We
]know perfectly well what it means -- and that's the problem.

The term "meaningless" is ambiguous here.  There are many examples of
problematic meanings in language.  For example, what does the word
"unicorn" denote?  What does "nothing" denote?  Clearly, both words
have a meaning in some sense, but neither has a "normal" denotation.
If you take the view that sentences denote their truth values, then
the liar's paradox can be taken as another example of the same thing.
-- 
					David Gudeman
gudeman@cs.arizona.edu
Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:6844 sci.logic:2103
From: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.logic
Subject: Re: Self-Reference and Paradox (was Re: Human intelligence...)
Date: 19 Nov 92 14:03:41 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Originator: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com


In article <1992Nov19.093736.28605@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr>, vidalnaq@alcatel-alsthom.fr (G. Vidal-Naquet) writes:

|> In my opinion the problem with this type of ssentences is the level  they
|>  deal.  In my course on logic, I learned that formula expresses a property
|>  of a given structure, or of a class of structures, and that the truth value
|> of a formula can be determined from the structure.  Now the important point
|> is that there is a distinction betweeen the formula and the structures that
|> they reference. Such paradox as the liar come from mixing the structure
|> obtained by formulas and the truth values, with the semantic function that
|>  gives the value of a given formaulas with respect to a structure. That is 
|> essentially mixing a set with functions.

I thought that at one time I was a genuine expert on this stuff.  But
I don't have a clue as to what is meant in the above paragraph.  The
various parts of it seem either unintelligible or obviously false.
Can anyone reformulate it?
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:6824 sci.philosophy.tech:4127 talk.philosophy.misc:2504
From: miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech,talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: talk.philosophy.language?
Date: 17 Nov 92 07:09:31 CST
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <1992Nov17.023057.19347@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>, John Wilkins <john@publications.ccc.monash.edu.au> writes:
> In article <1durs4INN9hl@sequoia.ccsd.uts.EDU.AU> Chris Chesher,
> cchesher@uts.edu.au writes:
>>And let's talk about Foucault, Baudrillard, Lyotard too!
> 
> Oh, please, let's not. Create a talk.philosophy.continent or something.

Hear, hear...
-- 
-Ken <miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> {Sometimes you have to look reality straight
 OPINIONS ARE MY OWN            {in the eye, and deny it. - G. Keillor
From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: grounding and the entity/environment boundary
Summary: finding what's behind that rock
Date: 14 Nov 92 02:21:08 GMT

: From: dave@tygra.Michigan.COM (David Conrad)
: Message-ID: <1992Nov13.015532.10022JPII@tygra.Michigan.COM>
: Normally we are able to expand our knowledge according to our
: curiousity.  For instance, if one is really wandering around in the
: grand canyon, and one wonders what may be behind that next rock
: outcropping there, well, one can just walk over and look.
: Not so for an entity depending on information someone else has chosen.
: There may be a .GIF of the other other side of the outcropping, but
: there may not, and the entity has no way to affect that.

To me, this seems analogous to a human wondering what's behind that
rock, but being unable to fit through the only crack which leads there
to find out.  Sure, the human can go and get a long pole and a dental
mirror, or a fiber optic camera, but then the computer could commision
somebody to take more GIFs.  The two situations don't seem
fundamentally dissimilar to me (though we see here that the computer is
at an access disadvantage, along with the resolution, frame rate,
field-of-view, and other disadvantages already mentioned).

: Imagine that you were trying to get information about a mall from
: a miniature video camera mounted on the head of a friend of yours
: walking through the mall.  "Why the hell is she spending so much
: time in this Radio Shack?  I wish she'd go over to that Waldenbooks.
: Ah! here we are.  Yes!  Come on...no, she went into the music store
: instead."
: How might this lack of control over inputs affect the intelligence,
: consciousness, or personality of an AI or a person, for that matter?

Somebody already mentioned that developmental studies done with cats
showed bad effects from such a situation.  (The situation as I recall
it was having one kitten tow another around, and showing that the
towed kitten had sensory problems (as well as the obvious motor
and sensory/motor coordination problems).
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw
Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:6848 sci.logic:2128
From: zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.logic
Subject: Re: Self-Reference and Paradox (was Re: Human intelligence...)
Date: 20 Nov 92 11:53:09 GMT
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre

In article <BxtBwx.LvH@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>In article <1992Nov14.151559.13227@oracorp.com>, daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>|>     This sentence is false.
>|> 
>|> refers to an unrestricted notion of falsity, and is therefore
>|> meaningless. We can replace "false" by a restricted notion of falsity

>This sort of thing has been tried before.  One problem is that the displayed
>sentence is *not* meaningless in any normal sense of this term.  We
>know perfectly well what it means -- and that's the problem.

No, we know what it SAYS, not what it MEANS.
Ever talk to a woman? (copious smileys and a brief aside to mention that the 
shrinks find many relationship problems come down to different modes of 
language usage)

  From the UK phone book Yellow Pages:  BORING - see Civil Engineers   

  Dave Budd, MCC, Oxford Rd, Manchester, England   (44|0)61-275-6033  
  D.Budd@mcc.ac.uk                                          fax 6040
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy