Table Of ContentAISB9 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
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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
