OM and Tom's projects' future (was Re: [om-list] OM version 0.02)

[Thomas L. Packer in BYU CS DEG]

Hello Luke

        The authors do not seem to want to spend any time at all on the
"philosophical issues", such as strong vs. weak AI, etc.  And I don't think
it talks about AI in literature.  But I think it covers everything else and
then some.  It is practical, not philosophical, which is something I need
right now.

    It takes the perspective that AI consists of a collection of tools for
doing some pretty neat things on a computer, things that probably cannot be
done without AI, and then it explains all of these things, one after the
other, in a very pedagogically-reasonable way, and in such a way that you
will be prepared to implement any of the methods discussed after you find a
little more detail on which ever part you are interested in implementing.

    I.e., it is just a good first book on AI for those who want to
understand the implementations of many topics in AI on a superficial level,
enough so that he can then buy a second book in order to implement the
particular techniques he finds most appealing.


    Thanks for reminding me what OM was.  :-)  I get a little carried away
sometimes.  I think OM is a good idea still: a better way to organize the
information we have.

tomp

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Luke Call" <lacall at onemodel.org>
To: "on the OM project" <om-list at onemodel.org>
Cc: "Thomas and Megan (h) Packer" <ThomasAndMegan at Middle.Net>
Sent: 2004.Feb.26/Thu 07:25
Subject: OM and Tom's projects' future (was Re: [om-list] OM version 0.02)


>
>
> Thomas L. Packer at home wrote:
> > Hello OM People
> >
> >     I highly recommend "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach" by
> > Russell and Norvig.  It is supposedly the best introductory AI text
around,
> > and I believe it.  It adds unity to the field of AI by expressing all
the
> > disparate ideas people think of as part of AI in terms of agents.
>
> How does it compare to the wikipedia page on AI? I may just order the
> book on your recommendation. (I'm sure it covers a lot more ground...)
>
>  > ....
> >     Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but I have started to view my
original
> > goal, and the goal of OM, as possibly being too idealistic -- and
perhaps
> > impossible.  But I will continue to think about it.  And we should
certainly
> > keep in mind the goal of usefulness: what do we want to do, and what
will we
> > be able to do, with the knowledge once it is all in the box?
>
> I sure enjoy your and Mark's emails.
>
> I think of OM as a way to model all knowledge we *have*; I would love it
> but don'ot know enough to say if it could do inference etc yet. I think
> of it this way: a word processor concept + web browser type concept let
> you organize words. OM lets you organize everything you know, by
> manipulating objects and complex relationships as easily as we now
> manipulate words. The power would come when it is used by many (On-line
> version) instead of one (initial personal organizer version), just as
> the power of the web is largely from the broad use.
>
> Good conversation going here.
>
> Luke
>