Steve, The KRAKEN paper was quite interesting, and has a LOT in common with my own Dr. Eliza. However, I saw no mention of Dr. Eliza's "secret sauce", that boosts it from answering questions to solving problems given symptoms. The secret sauce has two primary ingredients: 1. The syntax of differential symptom statements - how people state a symptom that separates it from similar symptoms of other conditions. 2. Questions, the answers to which will probably carry #1 above recognizable differential symptom statements. Both of the above seem to require domain *experienced* people to code, as book learning doesn't seem to convey what people typically say, or what you have to say to them to get them to state their symptom in a differential way. Also, I suspect that knowledge coded today wouldn't work well in 50 years, when common speech has shifted.
I finally gave up on having Dr. Eliza answer questions, because the "round trip error rate" seemed to be inescapably high. This is the product of: 1. The user's flaws in their world model. 2. The user's flaws in formulating their question. 3. The computer's errors in parsing the question. 4. The computer's errors in formulating an answer. 5. The user's errors in understanding the answer. 6. The user's errors from filing the answer into a flawed world model. Between each of these is: x.5 English's shortcomings in providing a platform to accurately state the knowledge, question, or answer. While each of these could be kept to <5%, it seemed completely hopeless to reduce the overall error rate to low enough to actually make it good for anything useful. Of course, everyone on this forum concentrates on #3 above, when in the real world, this is often/usually swamped by the others. Hence, I am VERY curious. Has KRAKEN found a worthwhile/paying niche in the world with itsw question answering, where people actually use it to their benefit? If so, then how did they deal with the round trip error rate? KRAKEN contains lots of good ideas, several of which were already on my wish list for Dr. Eliza sometime in the future. I suspect that a merger of technologies might be a world-beater. I wonder if the folks at Cycorp would be interested in such an effort? BTW, http://www.DrEliza.com is up and down these days, with plans for a new and more reliable version to be installed next weekend. Any thoughts? Steve Richfield ================== On 11/29/08, Stephen Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi Robin, > There are no Cyc critiques that I know of in the last few years. I was > employed seven years at Cycorp until August 2006 and my non-compete > agreement expired a year later. > > An interesting competition was held by Project > Halo<http://www.projecthalo.com/halotempl.asp?cid=30>in which Cycorp > participated along with two other research groups to > demonstrate human-level competency answering chemistry questions. Results > are > here<http://www.projecthalo.com/content/docs/ontologies_in_chemistry_ISWC2.pdf>. > Although Cycorp performed principled deductive inference giving detailed > justifications, it was judged to have performed inferior due to the > complexity of its justifications and due to its long running times. The > other competitors used special purpose problem solving modules whereas > Cycorp used its general purpose inference engine, extended for chemistry > equations as needed. > > My own interest is in natural language dialog systems for rapid knowledge > formation. I was Cycorp's first project manager for its participation in > the the DARPA Rapid Knowledge Formation project where it performed to > DARPA's satisfaction, but subsequently its RKF tools never lived up to > Cycorp's expectations that subject matter experts could rapidly extend the > Cyc KB without Cycorp ontological engineers having to intervene. A Cycorp > paper describing its KRAKEN system is > here<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cyc.com%2Fdoc%2Fwhite_papers%2Fiaai.pdf&ei=IDgySdKoIJzENMzqpJcL&usg=AFQjCNG1VlgQxAKERyiHj4CmPohVeZxRyw&sig2=o50LFe4D6TRC3VwC7ZNPxw> > . > > I would be glad to answer questions about Cycorp and Cyc technology to the > best of my knowledge, which is growing somewhat stale at this point. > > Cheers. > -Steve > > > Stephen L. Reed > > Artificial Intelligence Researcher > http://texai.org/blog > http://texai.org > 3008 Oak Crest Ave. > Austin, Texas, USA 78704 > 512.791.7860 > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Robin Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > *To:* [email protected] > *Sent:* Saturday, November 29, 2008 9:46:09 PM > *Subject:* [agi] Seeking CYC critiques > > What are the best available critiques of CYC as it exists now (vs. soon > after project started)? > > Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hanson.gmu.edu > Research Associate, Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University > Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University > MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 > 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323 > > ------------------------------ > *agi* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/> | > Modify<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;>Your Subscription > <http://www.listbox.com/> > > ------------------------------ > *agi* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/> | > Modify<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;>Your Subscription > <http://www.listbox.com/> > ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=120640061-aded06 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
