Abstract
My 1971 Turing Award Lecture was entitled "Generality in Artificial Intelligence." The topic turned out to have been overambitious in that I discovered I was unable to put my thoughts on the subject in a satisfactory written form at that time. It would have been better to have reviewed my previous work rather than attempt something new, but such was not my custom at that time.
I am grateful to ACM for the opportunity to try again. Unfortunately for our science, although perhaps fortunately for this project, the problem of generality in artificial intelligence (AI) is almost as unsolved as ever, although we now have many ideas not available in 1971. This paper relies heavily on such ideas, but it is far from a full 1987 survey of approaches for achieving generality. Ideas are therefore discussed at a length proportional to my familiarity with them rather than according to some objective criterion.
It was obvious in 1971 and even in 1958 that AI programs suffered from a lack of generality. It is still obvious; there are many more details. The first gross symptom is that a small addition to the idea of a program often involves a complete rewrite beginning with the data structures. Some progress has been made in modularizing data structures, but small modifications of the search strategies are even less likely to be accomplished without rewriting.
Another symptom is no one knows how to make a general database of commonsense knowledge that could be used by any program that needed the knowledge. Along with other information, such a database would contain what a robot would need to know about the effects of moving objects around, what a person can be expected to know about his family, and the facts about buying and selling. This does not depend on whether the knowledge is to be expressed in a logical language or in some other formalism. When we take the logic approach to AI, lack of generality shows up in that the axioms we devise to express commonsense knowledge are too restricted in their applicability for a general commonsense database. In my opinion, getting a language for expressing general commonsense knowledge for inclusion in a general database is the key problem of generality in AI.
Here are some ideas for achieving generality proposed both before and after 1971. I repeat my disclaimer of comprehensiveness.
- 1 Black, F. A deductive question answering system. Doctoral dissertation. Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass., 1964.Google Scholar
- 2 Buchanan, B.G., and Shortliffe, E.H. Eds. Rule-based expert systems: The MYCIN experiments of the Stanford Heuristic Programming Project. Stanford, Calif., 1984. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 3 Davis, R. Buchanan, B. and Shortliffe, E. Production rules as a representation for a knowledge-based consultation program. Artif. Infell. 8. 1 (Feb. 1977). 15-45.Google Scholar
- 4 Doyle, J. Truth maintenance systems for problem solving. In Proceedings of the 5th International loint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Cambridge, Mass., Aug. Z-25). IJCAI, 1977, p. 247.Google Scholar
- 5 Ernst, G.W. and Newell, A. GPS: A Case Study in Generality and Problem Solving. Academic Press, New York, 1969.Google Scholar
- 6 Fikes, R., and Nilsson. N. STRIPS: A new approach to the application of theorem proving to problem solving. Artif. Intell. 2, 3-4 (Jan. 1971),189-208.Google ScholarCross Ref
- 7 Friedberg. R.M. A learning machine. IBM j. Res. Den 2, 1 (Jan. 1958). Z-13.Google Scholar
- 8 Friedberg, R.M., Dunham, B., and North, J.H. A learning machine, Part II. IBM I. Res. Den 3. 3 {July 1959), 282-287.Google Scholar
- 9 Green, C. Theorem-proving by resolution as a basis for question answering systems. In Machine Intelligence 4, B. Meltzer and D. Michie, Eds. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, U.K., 1969. pp. 183-205.Google Scholar
- 10 Laird. J.E., Newell, A., and Rosenbloom, P.S. Soar: An architecture for general intelligence. Artif Intell. 33 (19871, l-64. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 11 Lifschitz. V. Computing circumscription. In Proceedings of the 9th international loint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. vol. I (Los Angeles, Calif., Aug. 19-23). IJCAI. 1985, pp. 121-127.Google Scholar
- 12 McCarthy, J. Programs with common sense. In Proceedings of fhe Teddington Conference on fhe Mechanizafion of Thought Processes, vol. 1 (Teddington, U.K. Nov. 24-27). Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1960, pp. 77-84. (Reprinted: M. Minsky, Ed. Semanfic Informafion Processing, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.}Google Scholar
- 13 McCarthy, J. First order theories of individual concepts and propositions. In Machine Infelligence 9, D. Michie. Ed. University of Edinburgh Press, Edinburgh, U.K., 1979.Google Scholar
- 14 McCarthy. J. Circumscription-A form of non-monotonic reasoning. Artif. Infell. 13. 1, 2 (Apr. 1980), 27-39.Google Scholar
- 15 McCarthy, J. Some expert systems need common sense. In Computer Culture: The Scientific, intellectual and Social Impact of the Computer, vol. 426, Heinz Pagels. Ed. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, New York Academy of Sciences, New York, 1983, pp. 129-137. Google Scholar
- 16 McCarthy, J. Applications of circumscription to formalizing common sense knowledge. Artif. Intell. 28, 1 (Feb. 1986). 89-116. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 17 McCarthy, J., and Hayes, P.J. Some philosophical problems from the standpoint of artificial intelligence. In Machine Intelligence 4. D. Michie. Ed. Elsevier North-Holland, New York, 1969, 463-502.Google Scholar
- 18 McDermott. D., and Doyle, J. Non-monotonic logic 1. Artif Intelt. 13. 1-2 {Apr. 1980), 41-72.Google Scholar
- 19 Newell, A., and Simon, H.A. Human Problem Solving. Prentice-Hall. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 20 Newell, A. Shaw, J.C. and Simon, H.A. Preliminary description of general problem solving program-1 (GPS-I). CIP Work. Pap. 7. Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, Pa., Dec. 1957.Google Scholar
- 21 Newell, A., Shaw, J.C., and Simon, H.A. A variety of intelligent learning in a general problem solver. In Self-Organizing Systems. M.C. Yovits and S. Cameron, Eds. Pergamon Press, Elmford, N.Y., pp. 153-189. (Apr. 1980}.81-132.Google Scholar
- 22 Reiter. R. A logic for default reasoning. Artif. Infell. 13, l-2Google Scholar
Index Terms
-
Generality in artificial intelligence
-
Recommendations
-
Cyber security and artificial intelligence: from fixing the plumbing to smart water
AISec '08: Proceedings of the 1st ACM workshop on Workshop on AISecComputer security and artificial intelligence in their early days didn't seem to have much to say to each other. AI researchers were interested in making computers do things that only humans had been able to do, while security researchers aimed to fix ...
Comments