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AI Bridges and Dreams

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Abstract

This paper is a modified version of my acceptance lecture for the 1986 SPL-Insight Award. It turned into something of a personal credo -describing my view of

  • the nature of AI

  • the potential social benefit of applied AI

  • the importance of basic AI research

  • the role of logic and the methodology of rational construction

  • the interplay of applied and basic AI research, and

  • the importance of funding basic AI.

These points are knitted together by an analogy between AI and structural engineering: in particular, between building expert systems and building bridges.

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References

  • Bundy, A., L. Byrd and C. Mellish (1982), ‘Special purpose, but domain independent inference mechanisms’, Proceedings of ECAI-82, 67-74, European Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Also available from Edinburgh as ‘DAI Research Paper No 179’. Submitted Electro-Technology Journal.

  • Bundy A. (1983) ‘The nature of AI: a reply to Schank’. The AI Magazine 4(4): 29-31

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  • Bundy, A. (1985), ‘Discovery and reasoning in mathematics’, A. Joshi (ed.), Proceedings of IJCAI-85, 1221-1230, International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Also available from Edinburgh as DAI Research Paper No 266.

  • Mackay, S. (1985), Bridge Across the Century: The Story of the Forth Bridges, Moubray House Press.

  • Silver, B. (1984), ‘Precondition analysis: learning control information’, MachineLearning 2, Tioga Publishing Company.

  • Sterling, L., A. Bundy, L. Byrd, R. O’Keefe and B. Silver, (1982), ‘Solving symbolic equations with press’, J. Calmer (ed.), Computer Algebra, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 144, 109-116, Springer Verlag. Longer version available from Edinburgh as Research Paper 171. To appear in Journal of Symbolic Computation.

  • Uschold, M., N. Harding, R. Muetzelfeldt and A. Bundy (1984), ‘An intelligent front end for ecological modelling’, T. O’Shea (ed.), Proceedings of ECAI-84, 761-770. Available from Edinburgh as Research Paper 223.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Alan Bundy

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  1. Alan Bundy
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Bundy, A. AI Bridges and Dreams. AI & Soc 21, 659–668 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-007-0116-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-007-0116-3

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