Mechanical Intelligence: Research and Applications
Abstract
Despite the success of a number of artificial intelligence system as natural-language interfaces to large data bases, the goal of a portable interface remains elusive. A portable interface is defined as a system for understanding natural-language data-base questions that can be easily adapted to a new data base, rather than being hard-wired to the data base for which it was developed. Much of the processing involved in understanding natural-language questions is the same no matter what the form of a particular application's data base. An interface must use many types of knowledge to understand questions: linguistic knowledge about the way words combine to produce meaning, knowledge of the domain of discourse to interpret the question, and knowledge of the structure of the data base to extract relevant data for a reply. Each area of knowledge has a portion that is independent of any particular interface application. For example, it can be argued that much of an interface's knowledge of English syntax is independent of the domain of discourse under consideration. This report identifies application-independent portions of an interface and integrates them with application-dependent portions into a coherent framework. Additional keywords: LADDER(Language Access to Distribute Data with Error Recovery); Man computer interface; ACCAT(Advanced Command and Control Architectural Testbed).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 19, 1979
- Accession Number
- ADA155417
Entities
People
- Kurt Konolige
Organizations
- SRI International