MIT AI Lab Memo No. 750 -- November, 1983 "Design Issues in Parallel Architectures for Artificial Intelligence" by Carl Hewitt and Henry Lieberman
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/530318.html This short (11 pages) paper describes the differences between traditional computer languages and those based on the Actor model, making a case for the application of Actor-based systems in AI. Their description of "open systems", characterized by "continuous change and evolution", "absence of bottlenecks", "decentralized decision-making", "arms-length relationships" (aka: no shared state), "perpetual inconsistency among knowledge bases" and "need for negotiation among system components", matches closely the kinds of challenges we face in todays distributed multi-processing environments. Hopefully this paper will assist in clarifying the relevance of the Actor-model to addressing these challenges. Enjoy!
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