AISB91: Proceedings of the Eighth Conference of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, 16–19 April 1991, University of Leeds PDF
Preview AISB91: Proceedings of the Eighth Conference of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, 16–19 April 1991, University of Leeds
AISB9 1 AISB91 PROCEEDINGS OF THE EIGHTH CONFERENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND SIMULATION OF BEHAVIOUR 16-19 APRIL 1991 UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS EDITED BY Luc STEELS AND BARBARA SMITH SPRINGER-VERLAG LONDON BERLIN HEIDELBERG NEW YORK PARIS TOKYO HONG KONG Luc Steels, MSc, PhD Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Director VUB AI Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium Barbara Smith, BSc, MSc, PhD, School of Computer Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. ISBN-13:978-J-540-19671-6 c-ISBN-13:978-1-4471-1852-7 1)01: 10.10071978-1-4471-1852-7 British Libruy Cataloguing in Publication Data AISB91 (Conference, University of Leeds) AISB91: Proceedings of the 8th Conference of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, 16-19 ApriJ 1991, University of Leeds 1. Artificial intclligence J. Title Il. Steels, Luc Ill. Smith, Barbara 1948- 006.3 Libruy of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour. Conference (8th: 1991 : University of Leeds) AISB91: Proceedings of the 8th Conference of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, 16-19 ApriJ 1991, University of Leeds I Luc Steels and Barbara Smith. p. em. 1. Artificial intelligence - Congresses. 2. Computer simulation - Congresses. 3. Machine learning - Congresses. 4. Reasoning Congresses. I. Steds, Luc. II. Smith, Barbara, 1948- . III. Title. Q334.S6315 1991 91-8041 0063-dc20 CIP Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 1991 The use of registered names, trademarks etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant laws and regulations and therefore free for general usc. Printed and bound by Page Bros (Norwich) Ltd, Mile Cross Lane, Norwich. 3413830-543210 Printed on acid-free paper PREFACE AISB91 is the eighth conference organized by the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour. It is not only the oldest regular conference in Europe on AI - which spawned the ECAI conferences in 1982 - but it is also the conference that has a tradition for focusing on research as opposed to applications. The 1991 edition of the conference was no different in this respect. On the contrary, research, and particularly newly emerging research dir ections such as knowledge level expert systems research, neural networks and emergent functionality in autonomous agents, was strongly emphasised. The conference was organized around the following sessions: dis tributed intelligent agents, situatedness and emergence in autonomous agents, new modes of reasoning, the knowledge level perspective, and theorem proving and machine learning. Each of these sessions is discussed below in more detail. DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENT AGENTS Research in distributed AI is concerned with the problem of how multiple agents and societies of agents can be organized to co-operate and collectively solve a problem. The first paper by Chakravarty (MIT) focuses on the problem of evolving agents in the context of Minsky's society of mind theory. It addesses the question of how new agents can be formed by transforming existing ones and illustrates the theory with an example from game playing. Smieja (GMD, Germany) focuses on the problem of organizing networks of agents which consist internally of neural networks. Smieja builds upon the seminal work of Selfridge in the late fifties on the Pandemonium system. Bond (University of California) addresses the problem of regulating co operation between agents. He seeks inspiration in sociological theory and proposes a framework based on negotiation. Finally Mamede and Martins (Technical University of Lisbon) address the problem of resource-bounded reasoning within the context of logical inference. vi PREFACE SITUATEDNESS AND EMERGENCE IN AUTONOMOUS AGENTS Research on robots and autonomous agents used to be focused strongly on low level mechanisms. As such there were few connections with the core problems of AI. Recently, there has been a shift of emphasis towards the construction of complete agents. This has lead to a review of some traditional concepts, such as the hierarchical decomposition of an agent into a perception module, a decision module and an action module and it has brought robotics research back to the front of the AI stage. This session testifies to the renewed interest in the area. The first paper, by Bersini (Free University of Brussels), is strongly within the new perspective of emphasizing situatedness and non symbolic relations between perception and action. It discusses the trade offs between reactive systems and goal-oriented systems. Seel (STC Technology, Harlow, UK) provides some of the formal foundations for understanding and building reactive systems. Jackson and Sharkey (University of Exeter) address the problem of symbol grounding: how signals can be related to concepts. They use a connectionist mechanism to relate spatial descriptions with results from perception. Cliff (Univer sity of Sussex) discusses an experiment in computational neuroethology. The next paper at the conference was from the Edinburgh Really Useful Robot project which has built up a strong tradition in building autonomous mobile robots. The paper was given by Hallam (University of Edinburgh) and discussed an experiment in real-time control using toy cars. The paper was unfortunately not received in time for publication in these Proceedings. The final paper is by Kaelbling (Teleos Research, Palo Alto, California) who elaborates her proposals for principled programming of autonomous agents based on logical specifications. At the conference, the session ended with a panel that tried to put the current work on autonomous agents into the broader perspective of AI. The panel included Smithers (University of Edinburgh), Kaelbling, Connah (Philips Research, UK), and Agre (University of Sussex). NEW MODES OF REASONING Reaso~g remains one of the core topics of AI. This session explored some of the current work to find new forms of reasoning. The first paper by Hendler and Dickens (University of Maryland) looks at the integ ration of neural networks and symbolic AI in the context of a concrete example involving an underwater robot. Euzenat and Maesano (CEDIAGlBull, Louveciennes, France) address the problem of forget ting. Pfahringer (University of Vienna) builds further on research in PREFACE vii constraint propagation in qualitative modelling. He proposes a mechan ism to improve efficiency through domain variables. Ghassem-Sani and Steel (University of Essex) extend the arsenal of methods for non recursive planning by introducing a method derived from mathematical induction. THE KNOWLEDGE LEVEL PERSPECTIVE Knowledge systems (also known as expert systems or knowledge-based systems) continue to be the most successful area of AI application. The conference was not focused on applications but on foundational princi ples for building knowledge systems. Recently there has been an important shift of emphasis from symbol level considerations (which focus on the formalism in which a system is implemented) to knowledge level considerations. The session highlights this shift in emphasis. The first paper by Pierret-Golbreich and Delouis (Universite Paris Sud) is related to work on the generic task architectures. It proposes a framework including support tools for performing analysis of the task structure of the knowledge system. Reichgelt and Shadbolt (University of Nottingham) apply the knowledge level perspective to the problem of knowledge acquisition. Wetter and Schmidt (IBM Germany) focus on the formalization of the KADS interpretation models which is one of the major frameworks for doing knowledge level design. Finally Lackinger and HaselbOck (University of Vienna) focus on domain models in knowledge systems, particularly qualitative models for simulation and control of dynamic systems. Then there are two papers which address directly foundational issues. The first one by Van de Velde (VUB AI Lab, Brussels) clarifies the (difficult) concepts involved in knowledge level discussions of expert systems, particularly the principle of rationality. Schreiber, Akkermans and Wielinga (University of Amsterdam) critically examine the suit ability of the knowledge level for expert system design. The session ended with a panel that addressed further the question of adequacy. The panel involved Leitch (Heriot Watt University, Edin burgh), Wielinga, Van de Velde, Sticklen (Michigan State University), and Pfeifer (University of Zurich). THEOREM PROVING AND MACHINE LEARNING The final set of papers focuses on recent work in theorem proving and machine learning. The first paper by Giunchiglia (IRST Trento, Italy) and Walsh (University of Edinburgh) discusses how abstraction can be used in theorem proving and presents solid evidence why it is useful. viii PREFACE Steel (University of Essex) proposes a new inference scheme for modal logic. Then there are two papers which represent current work on machine learning. The first one by Churchill and Young (University of Cam bridge) reports on an experiment using SOAR concerned with model ling representations of device knowledge. The second paper by Elliott and Scott (University of Essex) compares instance-based and generali zation-based learning procedures. The conference also featured invited talks by Andy Clark (University of Sussex) on the philosophical foundations of the field, Rolf Pfeifer (University of Zurich) on emotion, and Tony Cohn (University of Leeds) on common sense modelling using logic. There was a closing address by the Conference Chair, Luc Steels, who speculated on the role of consciousness in artificial intelligence. January 1991 Luc Steels VUBAILab 1050 Brussels - Belgium AISB91 PROGRAMME COMMITTEE Luc Steels Free University ofB russels (Chair) Benedict du Boulay University ofS ussex Anthony Cohn University of Leeds John Hallam University of Edinburgh Rolf Pfeifer University of Zurich Tim. Smithers University of Edinburgh Bob Wielinga University of Amsterdam LOCAL ORGANISER Barbara Smith University of Leeds TUTORIAL ORGANISERS Caroline Knight Stephen Todd Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol SPONSORS British Telecom Computing (Advanced Technology Group) Digital Equipment Co. Ltd. x AISB9I INVITED SPEAKERS Andy Clark University of Sussex Emergence, Content and Flexibilif:)! Anthony Cohn University of Leeds Logical Representations of Space and Time for Naive Physics Rolf Pfeifer University of Zurich The New Age of the Fungus-Eater: Comments on AI and Emotion CONTENTS DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENT AGENTS Deriving Transformers from Knowledge Organized as a Society of Agents A. S. Chakravarty ............................................................ 3 Multiple Network Systems (MINOS) Modules: Task Division and Module Discrimination F. J. Smieja ................................................................... 13 Commitments and Projects A. H. Bond ...... ...... ..................... .............................. ..... 26 RR - An Intelligent Resource-Bounded Reasoner N. J. Mamede andJ. P. Martins .......................................... 36 SITUATEDNESS AND EMERGENCE IN AUTONOMOUS AGENTS A Cognitive Model of Goal-oriented Automatisms and Breakdowns H. Bersini ...................................................................... 51 The 'Logical Omniscience' of Reactive Systems N. Seel .......................................................................... 62 A Connectionist Semantics for Spatial Descriptions S. A. Jackson and N. E. Sharkey ........................ ................. 72 Neural Networks and Visual Behaviour: Flies, Panned Eyes, and Statistics D. Cliff ......................................................................... 84 Specifying Complex Behaviour for Computer Agents L. P. Kaelbling ............................................................... 94 NEW MODES OF REASONING Integrating Neural Network and Expert Reasoning: An Example J. Hendler and L. Dickens .................................................. 109 An Architecture for Selective Forgetting J. Euzenat and L. Maesano ................................................. 117
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