Subject: FAQ: Artificial Intelligence Questions & Answers 1/6 [Monthly posting] Newsgroups: comp.ai,news.answers,comp.answers Summary: Frequently asked questions about AI Distribution: world Followup-To: poster Reply-To: mkant+ai-faq@cs.cmu.edu Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Archive-name: ai-faq/general/part1 Last-Modified: Thu Nov 21 19:53:49 1996 by Mark Kantrowitz Version: 1.41 Maintainer: Mark Kantrowitz URL: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/Groups/AI/html/faqs/ai/ai_general/top.html Size: 44868 bytes, 1163 lines ;;; **************************************************************** ;;; Answers to Questions about Artificial Intelligence ************* ;;; **************************************************************** ;;; Written by Mark Kantrowitz ;;; ai_1.faq If you think of questions that are appropriate for this FAQ, or would like to improve an answer, please send email to mkant+ai-faq@cs.cmu.edu. *** Copyright: Copyright (c) 1992-94 by Mark Kantrowitz. All rights reserved. This FAQ may be freely redistributed in its entirety without modification provided that this copyright notice is not removed. It may not be sold for profit or incorporated in commercial documents (e.g., published for sale on CD-ROM, floppy disks, books, magazines, or other print form) without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Permission is expressly granted for this document to be made available for file transfer from installations offering unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet. If this FAQ is reproduced in offline media (e.g., CD-ROM, print form, etc.), a complimentary copy should be sent to Mark Kantrowitz, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3891 USA. This article is provided AS IS without any express or implied warranty. *** Recent changes: ;;; 1.29: ;;; 13-FEB-95 mk Added MLC++ to [5-2a]. ;;; 22-FEB-95 mk Added CATALAN ASSOCIATION FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE to ;;; [1b] in part 3. ;;; 10-MAR-95 mk Updated Computer Speech & Language information. ;;; 10-MAR-95 mk Added Fogel's book on evolutionary computation to the ;;; bibliography. ;;; ;;; 1.30: ;;; 28-MAR-95 mk Updated AbTweak entry in part 5. ;;; 7-APR-95 mk Added some philosophy references provided by Aaron Sloman. ;;; ;;; 1.31: ;;; 14-APR-95 mk Updated DTP entry. ;;; 3-MAY-95 mk AI Expert has ceased publication with the July 1995 issue. ;;; ;;; 1.32: ;;; 15-MAY-95 mk Updated entry in part 6 on the Monash archive of CS tech ;;; reports. ;;; ;;; 1.33: ;;; 17-JUL-95 mk Added entry for INDUCTIVE mailing list. ;;; ;;; 1.34: ;;; 29-AUG-95 mk Added entry for Neural Network World to part 3. ;;; ;;; 1.35: ;;; 18-OCT-95 mk Updated DAI-List entry in part 2. ;;; ;;; 1.36: ;;; 13-NOV-95 mk Updated PSYCHE entry in part 2. ;;; 27-NOV-95 mk Updated SymbMath entry in part 5. ;;; 21-DEC-95 mk Removed GEST entry, per Stefan Roth. ;;; 4-JAN-96 mk Updated ECCAI info in part 3. ;;; 31-MAY-96 mk Updated Loebner prize and autopoeisis entries. ;;; 26-AUG-96 mk Updated ISAI entry in part 3. ;;; 21-NOV-96 mk Updated ISAI entry. *** Topics Covered: Part 1: [1-0] What is the purpose of this newsgroup? [1-1] History of AI. [1-2] Glossary of AI terms. [1-3] What are the top schools in AI? [1-4] How can I get the email address for Joe or Jill Researcher? [1-5] What are the rules for the game of "Life"? [1-6] What AI competitions exist? [1-7] Commercial AI products. [1-8] AI Job Postings [1-9] Future Directions of AI Part 2 (AI-related Newsgroups and Mailing Lists): List of all known AI-related newsgroups, newsgroup archives, mailing lists, and electronic bulletin board systems. Part 3 (AI-related Associations and Journals): List of AI-related associations and journals, organized by subfield. Part 4 (Bibliography): - Bibliography of introductory texts, overviews and references - Addresses and phone numbers for major AI publishers - Finding conference proceedings - Finding PhD dissertations Part 5 (FTP Resources): [5-0] General Information about FTP Resources for AI [5-1] FTP Repositories [5-2a] FTP and Other Resources: Agents -- Planning Note: Question [5-2] (FTP and Other Resources) is split across parts 5 and 6. Part 6 (FTP Resources): [5-2b] FTP and Other Resources: Qualitative Reasoning -- Theorem Proving [6-1] AI Bibliographies available by FTP [6-2] AI Technical Reports available by FTP [6-3] Where can I get a machine readable dictionary, thesaurus, and other text corpora? [6-4] List of Smalltalk implementations. [6-5] AI-related CD-ROMs [6-6] World-Wide Web (WWW) Resources Search for [#] to get to question number # quickly. *** Introduction: Certain questions and topics come up frequently in the various network discussion groups devoted to and related to Artificial Intelligence (AI). This file/article is an attempt to gather these questions and their answers into a convenient reference for AI researchers. It is posted on a monthly basis. The hope is that this will cut down on the user time and network bandwidth used to post, read and respond to the same questions over and over, as well as providing education by answering questions some readers may not even have thought to ask. The latest version of this FAQ is available via anonymous FTP from ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/pubs/faqs/ai/ [128.2.206.173] using username "anonymous" and password "name@host" (substitute your email address) or via AFS in the Andrew File System directory /afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/ai-repository/ai/pubs/faqs/ai/ as the files ai_1.faq, ai_2.faq, ai_3.faq, ai_4.faq, ai_5.faq and ai_6.faq. You can also obtain a copy of the FAQ by sending a message to ai+query@cs.cmu.edu with Send AI FAQ in the message body. The FAQ postings are also archived in the periodic posting archive on rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/ai-faq/general/ [18.181.0.24] If you do not have anonymous ftp access, you can access the archive by mail server as well. Send an E-mail message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with "help" and "index" in the body on separate lines for more information. An automatically generated HTML version of the AI FAQ is accessible by WWW as part of the AI-related FAQs Mosaic page. The URL for this resource is http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/Groups/AI/html/faqs/top.html The direct URL for the AI FAQ is http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/Groups/AI/html/faqs/ai/ai_general/top.html If you need to cite the FAQ for some reason, use the following format: Mark Kantrowitz, "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Artificial Intelligence", comp.ai, , , ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/pubs/faqs/ai/ai_?.faq, mkant+ai-faq@cs.cmu.edu. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: [1-0] What is the purpose of this newsgroup? The newsgroup comp.ai exists for general discussion of topics related to Artificial Intelligence. For example, possible topics can include (but are not necessarily limited to): announcements of AI books and products discussion of AI programs and tools questions about AI techniques problems implementing an AI technique Postings should be of general interest to the AI community. See also part 2 of the FAQ for a list of other more specialized discussion lists. Every so often, somebody posts an inflammatory message, such as Will computers every really think? AI hasn't done anything worthwhile. These "religious" issues serve no real purpose other than to waste bandwidth. If you feel the urge to respond to such a post, please do so through a private e-mail message, or post redirecting follow-ups to comp.ai.philosophy. We've tried to minimize the overlap with the FAQ postings to the comp.lang.lisp, comp.lang.prolog, comp.ai.neural-nets, and comp.ai.shells newsgroups, so if you don't find what you're looking for here, we suggest you try the FAQs for those newsgroups. These FAQs should be available by anonymous ftp in subdirectories of rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/ or by sending a mail message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with subject "help". The Lisp FAQ is also available by anonymous ftp from the same ftp location as the AI FAQ and from ftp.think.com:/public/think/lisp/. The Expert Systems Shells FAQ is also available by anonymous ftp from the same ftp location as the AI FAQ. Information about Prolog may be obtained from two sources: The Prolog FAQ, which is posted twice a month to the newsgroup comp.lang.prolog by Jamie Andrews , and the Prolog Resource Guide, which is posted to the newsgroup comp.lang.prolog once a month, and is available by anonymous FTP from ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/pubs/faqs/prolog/ [128.2.206.173] or in the AFS directory /afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/ai-repository/ai/pubs/faqs/prolog/ as the files prg_1.faq and prg_2.faq. The Robotics FAQ is available by anonymous ftp from ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/nivek/robotics-faq/ [128.2.206.173] as the files part1 and part2. To obtain a copy by email, send a message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu containing the following lines: send usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/part1 send usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/part2 On UUCP, it is available at uunet!/archive/usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/ as the files part1.Z and part2.Z, or by ftp from ftp.uu.net:/archive/usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/ [137.39.1.9] Information about object-oriented programming can be obtained in the newsgroups comp.object, comp.lang.clos, and comp.lang.smalltalk. Information about object-oriented databases can be obtained in the survey compiled by Stewart Clamen, which may be found either in the comp.object FAQ posting, by anonymous FTP from ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/afs/cs/user/clamen/OODBMS/evolution-summary.gz or at the URL http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~clamen/OODBMS/evolution-summary.gz The Neurosciences Internet Resource Guide is available by anonymous ftp from una.hh.lib.umich.edu:/inetdirsstacks/neurosci:cormbonario and by WWW from gopher://una.hh.lib.umich.edu/00/inetdirsstacks/neurosci:cormbonario in text (ascii) form. A hypertext version of the guide suitable for viewing using Mosaic is available from http://http2.sils.umich.edu/Public/nirg/nirg1.html For more information, contact Steve Bonario and Sheryl Cormicle . ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: [1-1] History of AI. For an online timeline of artificial intelligence milestones, see ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/pubs/faqs/ai/timeline.txt The appendix to Ray Kurzweil's book "Intelligent Machines" (MIT Press, 1990, ISBN 0-262-11121-7, $39.95) gives a timeline of the history of AI. Pamela McCorduck, "Machines Who Think", Freeman, San Francisco, CA, 1979. Allen Newell, "Intellectual Issues in the History of Artificial Intelligence", Technical Report CMU-CS-82-142, Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Department, October 28, 1982. See also: Charniak and McDermott's book "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence", Addison-Wesley, 1985 contains a number of historical pointers. Daniel Crevier, "AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence", Basic Books, New York, 1993. Henry C. Mishkoff, "Understanding Artificial Intelligence", 1st edition, Howard W. Sams & Co., Indianapolis, IN, 1985, 258 pages, ISBN 0-67227-021-8 $14.95. Margaret A. Boden, "Artificial Intelligence and Natural Man", 2nd edition, Basic Books, New York, 1987, 576 pages. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: [1-2] Glossary of AI terms. This is the start of a simple glossary of short definitions for AI terminology. ai: A three-toed sloth of genus Bradypus. This forest-dwelling animal eats the leaves of the trumpet-tree and sounds a high-pitched squeal when disturbed. (Based on the Random House dictionary definition.) Admissibility: An admissible search algorithm is one that is guaranteed to find an optimal path from the start node to a goal node, if one exists. In A* search, an admissible heuristic is one that never overestimates the distance remaining from the current node to the goal. Case-based Reasoning: Technique whereby "cases" similar to the current problem are retrieved and their "solutions" modified to work on the current problem. Data Mining: Also known as Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) was been defined as "The nontrivial extraction of implicit, previously unknown, and potentially useful information from data" in Frawley and Piatetsky-Shapiro's overview. It uses machine learning, statistical and visualization techniques to discover and present knowledge in a form which is easily comprehensible to humans. Fuzzy Logic: In Fuzzy Logic, truth values are real values in the closed interval [0..1]. The definitions of the boolean operators are extended to fit this continuous domain. By avoiding discrete truth-values, Fuzzy Logic avoids some of the problems inherent in either-or judgments and yields natural interpretations of utterances like "very hot". Fuzzy Logic has applications in control theory. Nonlinear Planning: A planning paradigm which does not enforce a total (linear) ordering on the components of a plan. Strong AI: Claim that computers can be made to actually think, just like human beings do. More precisely, the claim that there exists a class of computer programs, such that any implementation of such a program is really thinking. Validation: The process of confirming that one's model uses measureable inputs and produces output that can be used to make decisions about the real world. Verification: The process of confirming that an implemented model works as intended. Weak AI: Claim that computers are important tools in the modeling and simulation of human activity. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: [1-3] What are the top schools in AI? The answer to this question is not intended to be a ranking and should not be interpreted as such. There are several major problems with ratings like the Gourman Report and the US News and World Report. Such rankings are often unsubstantiated and anecdotal, their accuracy is questionable, and they do not focus on the subfields of an area. When selecting a graduate school, students should look for schools which not only have excellent programs in their general area of research but also at least one faculty member whose research interests mesh well with the student's. Accordingly, we've broken down this list according to topic, and sorted the schools within each topic in ALPHABETICAL ORDER. For a school to be added to a topic area, there should at least two faculty actively conducting research in that area and the school should have a "good" reputation in that area. Exceptions are made for schools which only have one faculty member in the area, but that professor is a "leader" of the area, or for fields where the total number of people working in the area is small in the first place. The general idea behind these criteria is to ensure that a school has enough activity in the area that a student who considers one of these schools won't be disappointed if one of the faculty in that area is on sabbatical or isn't taking students. Note that the research need not be conducted in the school's computer science department for the school to be listed -- in some cases we've included schools where the research is being conducted in a different department or special laboratory. The best way for students to discover which schools are good in a field is to ask professors (and graduate students) in their undergraduate school for suggestions on where to apply. Reading the research journals in the field is another good method (see part 3 of the FAQ). A genealogy of AI thesis-advising relationships is available by anonymous ftp as cs.ucsd.edu:/pub/rik/aigen.rpt Although intended to complement citation analysis and free-text information retrieval as tools for understanding the AI community and their connections to other disciplines, it may be useful to prospective graduate students. For example, it may help you understand the historical context of a given professor's perspective. 2,600 MS and PhD theses have been tabulated so far. If you'd like to contribute additional listings (including year, title, abstract, school, advisor, committee members, and subsequent employment), write to Rik Belew or fax 619-534-7029, for the questionnaire. A copy of the questionaire and more information is available in cs.ucsd.edu:/pub/rik/announce.t A list of email addresses for CS departments is posted once a month to the newsgroup soc.college.gradinfo. The Association for Computational Linguistics publishes a directory of graduate programs in Computational Linguistics ($15 for members, $30 for others). It includes several useful indices (e.g., index of faculty and a list of references). Contact Association for Computational Linguistics, Walker, C. N. 925, Bernardsville, NJ 07924-0925, phone/fax 908-204-1337, or send email to acl@bellcore.com. NOTE THAT THIS LIST IS PRELIMINARY AND BY NO MEANS COMPLETE. Please feel free to suggest schools that are particularly strong in any of these areas, or to suggest new areas to be listed. Schools with excellent programs in most fields: Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) MIT Stanford Georgia Tech Imperial College Indiana Institute for the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University (ILS) Johns Hopkins University Maryland Rutgers SUNY/Buffalo Toronto UC/Berkeley UCLA Univ. of Edinburgh Univ. of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Massachusetts/Amherst Univ. of Michigan Univ. of Pennsylvania Univ. of Pittsburgh Univ. of Rochester Univ. of Southern California & USC/Information Sciences Institute Univ. of Sussex, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences Univ. of Texas/Austin Yale Universities with 2 or more AAAI Fellows: Note: Some Fellows have changed their affiliation since being named, so this list isn't completely accurate. 12 MIT 11 Stanford University 10 Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) 6 Univ. of Massachusetts 5 Univ. of Toronto 5 Univ. of Texas at Austin 5 Univ. of Pennsylvania 5 Rutgers 3 Northwestern 3 UCLA 3 Univ. of Edinburgh 3 Univ. of Illinois 3 Univ. of Maryland 3 Univ. of Southern California (USC) 3 USC/Information Sciences Institute 2 Brown University 2 Duke University 2 Harvard 2 Univ. of California, Berkeley 2 Univ. of Pittsburgh 2 Univ. of Rochester 2 Univ. of Sydney Universities with only one AAAI Fellow include: Columbia University, George Mason, Georgia Tech, Imperial College, New Mexico State, Ohio State, Oregon State University, Oxford, P. and M. Curie University, SUNY/Binghamton, SUNY/Buffalo, Saint Joseph, San Jose State, Syracuse, Tufts, UC Irvine, UC/Santa Cruz, UCSD, Univ. of Birmingham, Univ. of British Columbia, Univ. of Cambridge, Univ. of Linkoeping, Univ. of Marseille, Univ. of Minnesota, Univ. of Sussex, Wellesley, Yale The full list of AAAI Fellows and their affiliations is available by anonymous ftp as ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/pubs/faqs/ai/aifellow.txt AI and Manufacturing: Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) -- CIMDS Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Toronto AI and Medicine: MIT Stanford Univ. of Pittsburgh Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) AI and Legal Reasoning: Imperial College Univ. of Massachusetts/Amherst Artificial Life: MIT (Brooks' mobots) NYU Santa Fe Institute (SFI) Stanford UC Santa Cruz UCLA UCSD Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Delaware Univ. of Sussex, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences Automated Deduction/Theorem Proving: Imperial College Stanford Univ. of Edinburgh Univ. of Oregon Univ. of Texas/Austin Case-Based Reasoning/Analogical Reasoning: Chicago Georgia Tech Institute for the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University (ILS) Univ. of Massachusetts/Amherst Univ. of Pittsburgh Cognitive Modelling: Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Georgia Tech Indiana SUNY Buffalo Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Michigan Cognitive Science: Brown University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Georgia Tech Indiana University/Bloomington Johns Hopkins MIT Princeton Rutgers SUNY/Buffalo Stanford UC/Berkeley UC/San Diego Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Colorado/Boulder Univ. of Edinburgh Univ. of Minnesota Univ. of Pennsylvania Univ. of Rochester Univ. of Sussex, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences Computational Biology: Carnegie Mellon University Johns Hopkins University Rutgers UC/Berkeley Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Pennsylvania Univ. of Wisconsin/Madison Computer Vision: See Machine Vision Connectionism/Neural Networks: Boston University, Cognitive and Neural Systems Department (ART networks) Brown University CalTech Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Indiana Johns Hopkins University MIT Ohio State Univ. Stanford Syracuse University Texas A&M Toronto UC/Berkeley UC/Irvine UC/San Diego UCLA UNC/Chapel Hill Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Colorado/Boulder Univ. of Edinburgh Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Massachusetts/Amherst Univ. of Pennsylvania Univ. of Southern California & USC/Information Sciences Institute Univ. of Sussex, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences Univ. of Wisconsin Decision Theory and AI: Berkeley MIT Stanford Univ. of Michigan Univ. of Washington Distributed AI: Georgia Institute Of Technology MIT Nova Southeastern University Stanford University Univ. of Maryland Univ. of Massachusetts/Amherst Univ. of Michigan Emotion: Carnegie Mellon University Institute for the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University (ILS) Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Fuzzy Logic: Berkeley Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Genetic Algorithms: George Mason Univ. Indiana Stanford (Koza) UC San Diego UCLA Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Univ. of Michigan Univ. of Sussex, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences Integrated AI Architectures/Software Agents: Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Stanford Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Michigan Univ. of Sussex, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences Intelligent Tutoring, AI & Education: Carnegie Mellon University (Cognitive Science Department) Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Institute for the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University (ILS) Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Pittsburgh Univ. of Sussex, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences Knowledge Representation: Institute for the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University (ILS) Stanford SUNY/Buffalo Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Oregon Logic Programming and Logic-based AI: Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Imperial College Stanford UCLA Univ. of Edinburgh Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Melbourne Univ. of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Univ. of Oregon Univ. of Pennsylvania Machine Discovery: Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Machine Learning: Brown University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) George Mason Georgia Tech Johns Hopkins University MIT UCI Univ. of Massachusetts/Amherst Univ. of Michigan Univ. of Southern California & USC/Information Sciences Institute Univ. of Texas/Austin Univ. of Wisconsin Machine Vision: Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Columbia Johns Hopkins MIT Oxford SUNY/Buffalo UCLA UNC/Chapel Hill Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Edinburgh Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Massachusetts/Amherst Univ. of Rochester Univ. of Southern California & USC/Information Sciences Institute Univ. of Sussex, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences Univ. of Wisconsin Natural Language Processing (NLU, NLG, Parsing, NLI, Speech): Brown Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Columbia Georgia Tech Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Institute for the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University (ILS) ISI Indiana Johns Hopkins University MIT Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Engineering Penn Rutgers Stanford SUNY/Buffalo Toronto UCLA Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Edinburgh Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Massachusetts/Amherst Univ. of Pittsburgh Univ. of Rochester Univ. of Southern California & USC/Information Sciences Institute Univ. of Sussex, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences Waterloo (stylistics, MT, discourse) Nonmonotonic Reasoning: Imperial College Stanford UCLA Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Oregon Toronto Philosophy of AI: Berkeley MIT SUNY Buffalo Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Sussex, School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences Planning: Brown University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Imperial College MIT Stanford SUNY Buffalo Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Massachusetts/Amherst Univ. of Oregon Univ. of Pittsburgh Univ. of Rochester Univ. of Washington/Seattle Waterloo Production Systems/Expert Systems: Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Stanford Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Qualitative Physics and Model Based Reasoning: Northwestern ILS (Forbus) Univ. of Oregon Univ. of Texas/Austin Univ. of Washington Reasoning Under Uncertainty (Probabilistic Reasoning, Approximate Reasoning, etc.): Brown University George Mason Oregon State University Stanford UCLA Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Rochester University of South Carolina Robotics: Bristol Polytechnic, UK Brown California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Georgia Tech Harvard Hull University, UK Johns Hopkins University MIT Naval Postgraduate School New York University (NYU) Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences North Carolina State Univerisity/Raleigh (NCSU) Oxford Purdue Reading University, UK Rennsalear Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Salford University, UK Stanford Swiss Federal Institute of Technology UC/Berkeley Univ. of Alberta Univ. of Edinburgh Univ. of Kansas Univ. of Kentucky Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Massachusetts/Amherst Univ. of Michigan Univ. of Paris INRIA Univ. of Pennsylvania Univ. of Southern California & USC/Information Sciences Institute Univ. of Utah Univ. of Wisconsin Yale Search: UCLA Univ. of Maryland/College Park Univ. of Oregon Temporal Reasoning: Imperial College Virtual Reality: Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Cal Arts Columbia Florida Institute of Technology MIT Media Lab Naval Postgraduate School Naval Research Lab RPI Stanford Syracuse Toronto UIUC UNC/Chapel Hill Univ. of Alberta, Banff Univ. of Birmingham England (School of Computer Science) Univ. of Central Florida Univ. of Geneva Univ. of North Carolina/Chapel Hill (UNC) Univ. of Tokyo Univ. of Virginia (UVA) Univ. of Washington/Seattle -- HIT Lab Vision: See Machine Vision ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: [1-4] How can I get the email address for Joe or Jill Researcher? The AAAI membership directory is updated annually and contains addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses for many members of AAAI and other AI societies. Contact info@aaai.org for information on getting a copy of the directory (you should get a free copy if you are a member of one of the listed societies). See also the Email Address FAQ posting to the newsgroups soc.college and soc.net-people. The Artificial Intelligence and Molecular Biology Researchers database contains names, institutions, addresses, phone, fax, email, research interests and other related information about more than 200 researchers worldwide. The database is available via anonymous ftp from the lhc.nlm.nih.gov:/pub/aimb-db/ There are computer- and human-readable versions available. Get the README file for more information or send email to Larry Hunter, . E-mail addresses for members of the Linguistics Society of America (LSA) are available by anonymous ftp as linguistics.archive.umich.edu:/linguistics/LSA.email.list or by sending a message to listserv@tamvm1.tamu.edu with "get lsa lst linguist" in the message body. A list of "Who's Who in Fuzzy Logic" may be obtained by sending a message to listserver@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at with GET LISTSERVER WHOISWHOINFUZZY in the message body. New entries and corrections should be sent to Robert Fuller . WHO's On-Line is a WWW biographical database of folks on the internet. http://www.ictp.trieste.it/Canessa/ENTRIES/entries.html For more information, contact E. Canessa . The Association for Logic Program (ALP) membership list was published in the February 1994 issue of the newsletter (Volume 7/1). It will be made available by anonymous ftp from Imperial College in October 1994. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: [1-5] What are the rules for the game of "Life"? Cellular Automata, of which Life is an example, were suggested by Stanislaw Ulam in the 1940s, and first formalized by von Neumann. Conway's "Game of Life" was popularized in Martin Gardner's mathematical games column in the October 1970 and February 1971 issues of Scientific American. (Shorter notes on life are alse given in the column in each month from October 1970 to April 1971, and well as November 1971, January 1972, and December 1972.) There's also quite a bit on the game in "The Recursive Universe", by William Poundstone, Oxford University Press, 1987, 252 pages. The rules for the game of life are quite simple. The game board is a rectangular cell array, with each cell either empty or filled. At each tick of the clock, we generate the next generation by the following rules: if a cell is empty, fill it if 3 of its neighbors are filled (otherwise leave it empty) if a cell is filled, it dies of loneliness if it has 1 or fewer neighbors continues to live if it has 2 or 3 neighbors dies of overcrowding if it has more than 3 neighbors Neighbors include the cells on the diagonals. Some implementations use a torus-based array (edges joined top-to-bottom and left-to-right) for computing neighbors. For example, a row of 3 filled cells will become a column of 3 filled cells in the next generation. The R pentomino is an interesting pattern: xx xx x Try it with other patterns of 5 cells initially occupied. If you record the ages of cells, and map the ages to colors, you can get a variety of beautiful images. When implementing Life, be sure to maintain separate arrays for the old and new generation. Updating the array in place will not work correctly. Another optimization to to maintain a list of the cells that changed. Conway has demonstrated that it is possible to construct the basic building blocks of a computer from Life using modified glider guns. See the last chapter of Elwyn R. Berlekamp, John H. Conway, and Richard K. Guy, "Winning Ways", Academic Press, New York, 1982, ISBN 0-120911-507. for details. Some interesting patterns to use include: * * * ** * * ** * ** * * * * ** *** * * **** * **** *** *** * * * ** * Clock Glider Block Spaceship * * * * **** * Traffic Light Cheshire Cat ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: [1-6] What AI competitions exist? The Loebner Prize, based on a fund of over $100,000 established by New York businessman Hugh G. Loebner, is awarded annually for the computer program that best emulates natural human behavior. During the contest, a panel of independent judges attempts to determine whether the responses on a computer terminal are being produced by a computer or a person, along the lines of the Turing Test. The designers of the best program each year win a cash award and a medal. If a program passes the test in all its particulars, then the entire fund will be paid to the program's designer and the fund abolished. For further information about the Loebner Prize, see the URL http://info.acm.org/~loebner/loebner-prize.htmlx or write to Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, 11 Waterhouse Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, or call 617-491-9020. The BEAM Robot Olympics is a robot exhibition/competition started in 1991. For more information about the competition, write to BEAM Robot Olympics, c/o: Mark W. Tilden, MFCF, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L-3G1, 519-885-1211 x2454, mwtilden@watmath.uwaterloo.ca. The Gordon Bell Prize competition recognizes outstanding achievements in the application of parallel processing to practical scientific and engineering problems. Entries are considered in performance, price/performance, compiler parallelization and speedup categories, and a total of $3,000 will be awarded. The prizes are sponsored by Gordon Bell, a former National Science Foundation division director who is now an independent consultant. Contestants should send a three- or four-page executive summary to 1993 Gordon Bell Prize, c/o Marilyn Potes, IEEE Computer Society, 10662 Los Vaqueros Cir., PO Box 3014, Los Alamitos, CA 90720-1264, before May 31, 1993. AAAI has an annual robot building competition. The anonymous FTP site for the contest is/was aeneas.mit.edu:/pub/ACS/6.270/AAAI/ This site has the manual and the rules. To be added to the rbl-94@ai.mit.edu mailing list for discussing the AAAI robot building contest, send mail to rbl-94-request@ai.mit.edu. See also the 6.270 robot building guide in part 4 of this FAQ. The International Computer Chess Association presents an annual prize for the best computer-generated annotation of a chess game. The output should be reminiscent of that appearing in newspaper chess columns, and will be judged on both the correctness and depth of the variations and also on the quality of the program's written output. The deadline is December 31, 1994. For more information, write to Tony Marsland , ICCA President, Computing Science Department, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada T6G 2H1, call 403-492-3971, or fax 403-492-1071. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: [1-7] Commercial AI products. Commercial Expert System Shells are listed in the Expert System Shells FAQ. See the Robotics FAQ for information on Robotics manufacturers. Stiquito is a small (3cm H x 7cm W x 6cm L), simple (32 parts) and inexpensive (< $30) nitinol-propelled hexapod robot developed at the Indiana University (Bloomington) Robotics Laboratory. Its legs are propelled by nitnol actuator wires. Each leg has one degree of freedom. The robot walks up to 10 centimeters per minute and can carry a 9-volt cell, a MOSIS "tiny chip" and power transistors to drive the nitinol actuator wires. Nitinol wire (aka BioMetal, Flexinol), is a nickel-titanium alloy which exerts useful force as it is heated by passing a current through it. IUCS Technical Report 363a describes Stiquito's construction and is available by anonymous ftp from cs.indiana.edu:/pub/stiquito/ [129.79.254.191] as are many other related files. The tech report is also available by US mail for $5 (checks or money orders should be made payable to "Indiana University") from Computer Science Department, Attn: TR 363a 215, Lindley Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405. A kit containing all the materials needed to construct a simple version of Stiquito and its controller is available for an extra $10 from the above address (use attn line "Stiquito Kit"). To receive a video showing the assembly of Stiquito, include an additional $10 and add "Video" to the "Attn:" line. Anyone may build and use Stiquitos in any quantity for educational or research purposes, but Indiana University reserves all rights to commercial applications. Questions about Stiquito should be sent to Prof. Jonathan W. Mills . To join the Stiquito mailing list run by Jon Blow of UC/Berkeley, send mail to stiquito-request@xcf.berkeley.edu. Togai InfraLogic, Inc. (TIL) is a supplier of fuzzy logic and fuzzy expert system software and hardware. For more information, write to Togai InfraLogic, Inc., 5 Vanderbilt, Irvine, CA 92718, call +1 714 975 8522, fax +1 714 975 8524, or send email to info@til.com or til!info. TIL also supports an email-server that can be reached at fuzzy-server@til.com or til!fuzzy-server. Send an email message that contains just the word "help" in either the subject line or the message body for more information. A list of products can be obtained by sending a message that contains only the line "send products.txt" to the email-server. For an index of the contents of the server, send a message with the line "send index". The following is from Risks Digest 13.83 -- I have no idea what the software does, but Colby did head up the PARRY project: FEELING HELPLESS ABOUT DEPRESSION? Overcoming Depression 2.0 provides computer based cognitive therapy for depression with therapeutic dialogue in everyday language. Created by Kenneth Mark Colby, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioural Sciences, Emeritus, UCLA. Personal Version ($199), Professional version ($499). Malibu Artificial Intelligence Works, 25307 Malibu Rd, CA 90265. 1-800-497-6889. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: [1-8] AI Job Postings The AI-Jobs mailing list exists to help programmers and researchers find AI programming and research positions, and to help companies with AI programming and research positions find capable AI programmers and researchers. Material appropriate for the list includes AI job announcements and should be sent to ai+ai-jobs@cs.cmu.edu. Resumes should NOT be sent to the list. As a matter of policy, the contents of this mailing list is considered confidential and will not be disclosed to anybody. To subscribe, send a message to ai+query@cs.cmu.edu with subscribe ai-jobs , in the message body and no Subject line. Similar lists exist for post-doctoral fellowships (subscribe to AI-POSTDOC), pre-doctoral fellowships (subscribe to AI-PREDOC), Lisp jobs (subscribe to Lisp-Jobs) and Prolog jobs (subscribe to Prolog-Jobs). (If your mailer objects to the "+", send subscription requests to "ai+query"@cs.cmu.edu, job announcements to "ai+ai-jobs"@cs.cmu.edu, etc.) For help on using the query server, send mail to ai+query@cs.cmu.edu with help in the message body and no Subject line. Job postings sent to the list are automatically archived in appropriate subdirectories of ftp.cs.cmu.edu:/user/ai/jobs/ or on the AI-related Job Posting Archives web page http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/Groups/AI/html/other/jobs.html If you have any other questions, please send them to ai+@cs.cmu.edu [For neural networks, the Neuron Digest and Connectionists mailing lists are a good source of job postings. For computer vision, the VISION-LIST digest includes occasional job announcements. A good source for general AI is Computists' Communique. For postdoctoral appointments, see sci.research.postdocs.] ---------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: [1-9] Future Directions of AI The purpose of this question is to compile a list of major ongoing and future thrusts of AI. To be included in this list a research problem or application must have the following characteristics: [1] Collaborative Community Effort: It must span several subfields of AI, requiring some degree of collaboration between AI researchers of different specialties. The idea is to help unify the fragmented subfields with a common purpose or purposes. [2] High Impact: It must address important problems of widespread interest. Solving the problem must matter to many people and not simply be adding another grain of sand on the anthill. This will help motivate and excite researchers, and justify the field to outsiders. [3] Short Horizon for Progress: It must be possible to have incremental progress and not be an all or nothing problem. For example, problems where we can reasonably expect to make significant measurable progress over the next 10 years or so. [4] Drive Basic Research: It should involve more than just applying current technology, but should drive basic research and the development of new technology (possibly in completely new directions). In short, these problems should be "Grand Challenges" for AI. If you were trying to describe the field of AI to a layman, what concrete problems would you use to illustrate the overall vision of the field? Saying that the goal of AI is to produce "thinking machines that solve problems" doesn't quite cut it. o Knowbots/Infobots and Intelligent Help Desks Unifies NLU, NLG, Information Retrieval, KR, Reasoning, Intelligent User Interfaces, Qualitative Reasoning. o Autonomous Vehicles Unifies Robotics, Machine Vision, Machine Learning, Intelligent Control, Planning o Machine Translation Unifies NLU, NLG, Knowledge Representation, Speech Understanding, Speech Synthesis Additional problems are, of course, welcome. I have not included the Loebner Prize (e.g., passing the unrestricted Turing Test) in the list because it doesn't address a high impact problem. It seems appropriate to mention, in this context, some of the early goals of AI. In 1958 Newell and Simon predicted that computers would -- by 1970 -- be capable of composing classical music, discovering important new mathematical theorems, playing chess at grandmaster level, and understanding and translating spoken language. Although these predictions were overly optimistic, they did represent a set of focused goals for the field of AI. [See H. A. Simon and A. Newell, "Heuristic Problem Solving: The Next Advance in Operations Research", Operation Research, pages 1-10, January-February 1958.] ---------------------------------------------------------------- ;;; *EOF*