AI Magazine Volume 19 Number 4 (1998) (© AAAI) Workshop Report

Venue Report on The Eighth Ireland Straddling the meandering River Foyle where it becomes Lough Foyle, Derry Conference on Artificial (from Doire [Oak Grove] in Gaelic), or Londonderry (and some other names Intelligence and Cognitive besides), has a rare scenic beauty. It is rich in history, encompassing monas- tic settlement and fully extant city Science (AICS-97) walls, the great siege of the late seven- teenth century, and much more. A vis- Theme: AI in “Crisis”? it to the renowned Tower Museum is more than rewarding. It is a northern European city of 100,000, almost on the border between the Republic of Paul Mc Kevitt Ireland and Northern Ireland. The area has wide renown for its writers (Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney, Jennifer Johnson) and musicians (Phil Coulter, Clannad, Dana, Enya, Daniel O Don- tion” at Dublin City University, he Eighth Ireland Conference nell) and, of course, its computer sci- Dublin, Ireland, on 15–17 September. on Artificial Intelligence and entists (www.ni-tourism.com/noplug- TCognitive Science (AICS-97), We advertised AICS-97 internation- in.htm, www.ireland.travel.ie/, and which was run in conjunction with ally to mail groups and on usenet as www.interknowledge.com/northern- the Irish Machine Vision and Image well as placed information at the Uni- ireland). Processing Conference (IMVIP-97), versity of Ulster on the World Wide To the east of the Foyle, we have the was a success. The delegates for both Web. The local press (The Derry Journal north Derry coast, with beautiful meetings enjoyed themselves and & Belfast Telegraph) and radio (BBC beaches at Benone and Castlenock expressed their congratulations on Northern Ireland) ran a number of and then through Coleraine to the the program and organization. Also, articles leading up to and during the seaside resorts of Portstewart and for the first time, AICS attracted a conference. All plenary invited speak- Portrush. A few kilometers further large number of delegates and papers er talks and the panel session went out along the north Antrim coast, we from abroad, including many from on streaming video and audio, stored arrive at the Giants’ Causeway and the United Kingdom, Europe, and Bushmills with the world’s oldest even the United States and Asia. whiskey distillery (www.infosites.net/ AICS-97 was hosted by the Faculty This article is a report of the Eighth tourism/topten/bushmills.html) that of Informatics, University of Ulster, Ireland Conference on Artificial Intel- delegates could visit as part of the con- Magee College; the Artificial Intelli- ligence and Cognitive Science (AICS- ference tour. 2 97), which was run in conjunction gence Association of Ireland (AI) , the The Inishowen Peninsula borders Cognitive Science Society of Ireland with the Irish Machine Vision and Image Processing Conference the West of Lough Foyle with a beauti- (CSSI), and the Society for the Study of (IMVIP-97), held at the University of ful “Inishowen 100” tour, and one can Artificial Intelligence and Simulation Ulster, Magee College in Derry/Lon- visit the rugged mountains and sea of Behavior (SSAISB). Sponsorship was donderry, Northern Ireland, on 10 to cliffs in the close hinterland of Done- provided by the University of Ulster, 13 September 1997. gal (for example, Glenveagh National the Industrial Research and Technolo- Park once owned by the McIlhenny gy Agency Unit (IRTU) of Northern Family, inventors of famed Tabasco Ireland, the International Association and live with the possibility of phone- Sauce!); Gweedore, home of the Clan- for Pattern Recognition (IAPR), the nad Family; and Enya and Kincass- in questions (organized by Ted Leath, European Computer Vision Network lagh, home of Daniel O Donnell. A University of Ulster, Magee). of Excellence (ECVnet), and the Opti- yearly calendar of events for Ireland Fionn Murtagh (University of cal Engineering Society of Ireland and Northern Ireland can be found at (OESI). A large number of other Irish Ulster, Magee) was the general chair www.emigrant.ie/calendar.htm. and British organizations, including for both AICS-97 and IMVIP-97, and The Faculty of Informatics at the the British Council, the Institution of Jon Campbell (University of Ulster, University of Ulster has a large Electrical Engineers, and the British Magee) coordinated local organiza- research team in AI covering a broad Computer Society, agreed to cooper- tion for AICS-97 as well as acted as range of themes. Particular strengths ate. The cognitive science strand of program chair for IMVIP-97. They did lie in the areas of evidential reasoning, AICS-97, the Annual Conference of a supreme job. More details on all the data mining and knowledge discov- the CSSI, was run as “MIND-II: Com- events are available at www.infm.ulst. ery, user modeling and natural lan- putational Models of Creative Cogni- ac.uk/research/conferences.html. guage processing, machine learning,

Copyright © 1998, American Association for Artificial Intelligence. All rights reserved. 0738-4602-1998 / $2.00 WINTER 1998 135 Workshop Report computational intelligence, intelli- in “crisis” and its failures/suc- lar experience in the VERBMOBIL Project, gent multimedia, and distributed cesses are particularly welcome! which integrates speech and language object computing (www.infc.ulst.ac. Ever since George Boolean processing as applied to a spoken dia- uk/informatics/). Logic (Cork), James Joyce’s logue machine-translation system The faculty hosts the Northern Ire- advances on streams-of-con- running on a mobile laptop computer. land Knowledge Engineering Labora- sciousness (see Dennett’s Joycean Okada focused on a similar theme to tory (NIKEL), a joint venture with machine), Claude Shannon Von Hahn with his paper “AESOP- International Computers Limited, found information theory and WORLD: An Integrated System for Intel- which carries out extensive work on John McCarthy made LISP and lectual Emotional Agents,” describing the application of AI techniques to gave the field its name (Dart- an integrated comprehension and industrial and medical problems. mouth, US, 1956) we have been generation system for integrating into artificial intelligence. vision, language, and motion. The sys- The Program tem simulates the protagonist, or fox, Invited Papers of an Aesop fable, “The Fox and the The Program Committee consisted of AICS-97 had 6 posters, 3 invited Grapes,” showing his mental and more than 80 members from both Ire- papers, and 21 papers split into 5 ses- physical behavior with graphic dis- land and Great Britain as well as inter- sions: (1) data analysis, (2) artificial life plays, a voice generator, and a music nationally renowned researchers from and neural networks; (3) knowledge generator that expresses the wolf’s farther afield. The program contained representation, (4) psychology and emotional states. a balanced and interesting set of philosophy, and (5) natural language papers in response to the following processing. We had a good group of Submitted Papers call for papers: international invited speakers: John Intelligent multimedia (Mc Kevitt AI in “Crisis”? McCarthy (Stanford University), 1995–1996) was a theme that came up Walther Von Hahn (University of a number of times: Paul Mc Kevitt pre- Has the field been in Hamburg, Germany), and Naoyuki sented a frame semantics for the `crisis’?—Some argue we’ve been Okada (Kyushu Institute of Technolo- CHAMELEON system (Brøndsted et al. in the wilderness with no break- throughs for decades except gy, Japan). These speakers were com- 1998) at Aalborg University, Denmark, minor shifts toward connection- plimented by a similarly good set for that integrates spoken dialogue, ges- ism and neural networks, artifi- IMVIP-97: James Crowley (Institut ture, and laser output and, in one cial life, data collection/corpora, National Polytechnique de Grenoble, application, gives information on two- and hybrid systems. Others say France), Anil Jain (Michigan State Uni- dimensional building plans placed on the move toward integration (e.g. versity), and Jean-Christophe Olivo a table. Ronan Reilly’s (University Col- intelligent multimedia integrat- (European Molecular Biology Labora- lege Dublin) paper, entitled “BROCA’s ing language/vision), Person- tory, Heidelberg, Germany). The Area and the Development of Object Kommunikation, mobile and IMVIP-97 speakers gave memorable Assembly and Language Production remote computing, more and talks on the latest results in vision and Skills,” explores, through simulation, more engineering and a focus on image processing, and David Vernon the various issues raised by Green- the significance or otherwise of (NUI, Maynooth, Ireland) gave an field’s work on motor coordination the self, mind and consciousness excellent tutorial on industrial vision. and speech, with results supporting is emphasizing the successes of It was a coup to have McCarthy, her homology hypothesis. AI.… who named the field artificial intelli- A number of the papers directly Ireland has hosted AI confer- gence at the Dartmouth, United addressed the theme of the conference ences usually annually since States, conference in 1956 and also (AI in “Crisis”?), and those that did 1988. This eighth AI-97 confer- gave us Lisp. McCarthy’s paper, enti- were memorable. In “Reinventing ence will continue the tradition tled “The Logic Road to Human-Level Behaviorism,” Patrick Juola from of emphasizing presentations of AI,” focused on a history of AI Oxford University noted that one of Ireland’s and international origi- throughout the years, going back as the fundamental problems of AI is its nal research in all areas of artifi- far as Frege, Boole, and Turing, with unwillingness to take credit for things cial intelligence and cognitive the clear theme that formal logic is that appear to be successes. He argues science including computer sci- central to achieving results in AI. Von that modern AI theories are sophisti- ence, psychology, linguistics, Hahn’s paper, entitled “Putting cated versions of long-discarded philosophy, neuroscience and Together the Parts: Complex Artificial behaviorist theories. Juola noted that related disciplines on the obvious Intelligence Systems,” stressed the on 11 May 1997, the IBM program problems of speech, NLP, and importance of integration in AI and DEEP BLUE became the first chess-play- vision processing, robotics, learn- the need to spend more time on tech- ing computer program to defeat a ing, reasoning, knowledge repre- nologies for putting subsystems grand master in a match, and four sentation and mobile/remote together, including intelligent multi- days later, Mc Kevitt posted the call for computing. Papers which address media systems that integrate language papers for AICS-97 with the theme AI whether or not the field has been and vision. He pointed to his particu- in “crisis”? Steve Battle in “The Chang-

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Okada asked, “Why should AI be in crisis?”; it is progressing slowly and steadily. With respect to breakthroughs in the near future, he noted that for Reilly started by noting that there isn’t a crisis algorithms, the answer is maybe, and for data, well? Data collection is in AI, rather, the opposite. He said developments behind algorithm development. He in AI and in a number of related disciplines will pointed out that at the moment, data lead to significant breakthroughs in the field at the human level is collected by hand-crafting and machine-assisted within the next decade. methods but might be by machine learning in the future. He noted that concepts and rules are not enough for ing Role of Representation in AI” Reilly started by noting that there knowledge data, and episodic data, looked at the changing role on the isn’t a crisis in AI, rather, the opposite. including many instances from every- basis that if there is a crisis in AI, we He said developments in AI and in a day life, are important. He concluded are sure to find the epistemological number of related disciplines will lead by saying that intelligent agents will status of knowledge representation at to significant breakthroughs in the come close to human-level agents in the heart of it. He illuminated the field within the next decade. These more than 100 years. checkered history of the field with the include (1) research on intelligent Jain pointed out that his area of analogy that the work of Wittgenstein agent-based systems; (2) research on research is pattern recognition and suffered a similar crisis. robots that can learn; (3) the increased computer vision and that he might be Another memorable paper was by exploitation of parallel computation; considered an outsider to the field of James Hammerton, entitled “Func- and (4) the increased spatial and tem- AI. He noted that although many tional Compositionality and a New poral resolution of noninvasive brain- would claim that pattern recognition View of Knowledge Representation,” imaging techniques, leading to better is an intelligent task, it has also been who argued that new connectionist models of brain functioning. He point- said that problems that have been techniques for compositional repre- ed to some interesting trends in the solved (for example, isolated spoken sentation have opened up a new view field of embodied cognition and word recognition) come under the cat- of knowledge representation by robotics that suggest that looking at the demonstrating that compositionality integration and collaboration of multi- egory of pattern recognition and those can be achieved in more than one way ple sensory and motor modules (such that have not yet been solved (for and that the form of the representa- as we find in the brain) might be a way example, continuous speech recogni- tion is just as important as the choice of cracking some of the hard problems tion) are labeled as AI problems. With of representational language. There that confront us when we adopt a more respect to AI in crisis, he suggested were papers by Mike McTear, Ian O monolithic approach to AI tasks. that perhaps a better way to ask this Neill, and Kevin Greenan on working Crowley mentioned the “S curve” of question would be to make the obser- spoken dialogue systems; Adrian Tre- technology growth and the fact that vation that many AI researchers, naman presented an approach to evo- we need to see AI in a historical frame- including pattern recognition and lutionary computation to overcome work. He mentioned his “grand chal- computer vision researchers, have the problems of autonomous behavior lenge for speech, vision, and artificial realized that (1) no single representa- in artificial systems; D. Charles and C. intelligence” to build a machine that tion and matching approach will work Fyfe discussed an approach where integrates, perception, speech, natural for a variety of problems; (2) to evalu- neural networks use factor analysis to language, reasoning, and learning to ate a particular representation-match- provide preprocessing techniques for exhibit awareness. In turn, awareness ing approach, one should build a com- subsequent higher-level symbolic pro- would bring intelligence to our arti- plete system; and (3) systems must be cessing; and Niall Griffith and M. facts, machines, and buildings. Hous- evaluated on large amounts of real Lynch presented NEURODRAUGHTS,a es, apartments, and offices would dis- data. As an example, many vision connectionist draughts player. tinguish us from intruders or guests researchers have been designing and and would adapt the environment to refining specific modules (for exam- Plenary Panel Session: our preferences (music, temperature, ple, stereo) without determining “Is There a Crisis in AI?” lighting). He noted that we want to be which particular approach will per- The plenary panel session for both able to tell devices what to do and not form better (both in terms of speed AICS-97 and IMVIP-97, entitled “Is how to do it. The challenge requires and accuracy of the resulting depth There a Crisis in AI?” with Mc Kevitt contributions from the fields of map) when inserted in a complete (chair), Ronan Reilly (Dublin), Crow- human-computer interaction, com- vision system. In summary, Jain said ley, Okada, and Jain, came to the con- puter vision, speech recognition, he does not feel that AI is in crisis. On clusion that there is no crisis in AI, and speech synthesis, natural language the contrary, it has matured, and we the field has never been doing better in processing, learning, and AI. For more should see some impressive intelligent terms of both theory and engineering. details, see Crowley (1997). systems in the near future. Whether

WINTER 1998 137 Workshop Report we want to call these systems AI sys- devoted to AI has increased steadily and Aileach, and the Derry City Walls. tems or robotics systems or vision sys- shows no signs of being cut back in the Unlike previous AICS meetings, this tems or pattern-recognition systems is near future. Von Hahn also sent an e- conference was much more interna- a separate issue. mail expressing that if there is any cri- tional, with many coming from Great Mc Kevitt started by saying that he sis, it is of expectations that are too Britain, Europe, the United States, and believes there is no crisis in AI and high. The breakthroughs of the first Asia. We hope that this trend will con- that AI has moved very much now years were the unexpected (because of tinue so that AICS continues to be into engineering. He presented the the shift of paradigm) toy applications seen as an international meeting. We CHAMELEON hardware and software and sketchy projects that caused expec- had over 70 delegates for both AICS platform developed at Aalborg Univer- tations that were too high. Like all oth- and IMVIP. A picture gallery of the sity (Brøndsted et al. 1998) that inte- er fields, AI needs its maturation, and it conferences is available at www.infm. grates spoken dialogue and image pro- is starting to produce, slowly, like all ulst.ac.uk/research/ai97.1 cessing and noted that this is other fields, its first useful results. Von happening in an engineering depart- Hahn’s invited paper also concluded by Note ment. He pointed to the robotics work saying that doing more engineering 1. Copies of the AICS-97 and IMVIP-97 pro- at the University of Sheffield, United with integrated systems will keep AI out ceedings can be bought by sending a check Kingdom, where spoken dialogue is of crisis. The complete panel session is for 25.00 British Pounds (which includes postage costs), made payable to “IMVIP/AI- being integrated with MURPHY, a available as audio/video on the confer- 97—University of Ulster” to Jon Campbell, Nomad robot, that can interpret ence web page (www.infm.ulst.ac.uk/ Faculty of Informatics, University of Ulster, maneuvers in spatial environments. research/conferences.html). Magee College, Londonderry BT48 7JL, He then went on to show the “Irish Northern Ireland. room,” a response to Searle’s (1990) “Chinese room,” where a leprechaun Local Organization References who understands Gaelic and cannot Local organization was coordinated by Brøndsted, T.; Dalsgaard, P.; Larsen, L. B.; understand English, is locked in a Murtagh and Campbell, with the help Manthey, M. J.; Mc Kevitt, P.; Moeslund, T. room and has the task of using a Gael- B.; and Olesen, K. G. 1998. A Platform for of Administrative Assistants Rosemary ic rule book for manipulating English Developing Intelligent Multimedia Appli- Doherty, Caroline McNutt, and Colm words. Each English word has an icon cations, Technical Report, R-98-1004, Cen- O Driscoll and Technicians Ted Leath or picture sequence attached to it. ter for PersonKommunikation, Aalborg and Paddy McDonagh. McNutt did an Then, to an outside observer, the lep- University, Denmark. excellent job of making sure every- rechaun appears to be able to under- Crowley, J. 1997. Machine Awareness: A thing ran smoothly. Leath and stand English just as a computer pro- Grand Challenge for Speech, Vision, and McDonagh worked hard on the video Artificial Intelligence. ELSNews 6(3). gram that manipulates symbols could and computing facilities and the appear to do so. However, this time, Mc Kevitt, P., ed. 1995–1996. Integration of stored and live-streaming video and Natural Language and Vision Processing, Vol- the leprechaun begins to understand audio. umes 1–4. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: the English words because he/she has The extensive social program for Kluwer-Academic. reference to their meaning. Video, AICS-97, organized by Murtagh and Searle, J.R. 1990. Is the Brain’s Mind a Com- sounds, smells, and even touch can be Campbell was a great success (the puter Program? Scientific American added in later! Mc Kevitt concluded social program always makes a confer- 262:26–31. with a formula for the future: ence); it included a registration recep- × × 3 CS = I I I = I , tion at The Derry City Guildhall host- Paul Mc Kevitt is visiting professor of intel- where both cognitive science (CS) and ed by the Mayor as well as a guided ligent multimedia computing at Aalborg computer science (CS) are converging tour of the building, a conference ban- University, Denmark, and a British EPSRC advanced fellow in the Department of on information (I), intentions (I), and quet at the Trinity Hotel, and a confer- Computer Science at the University of integration (I). ence tour of the famed Bushmills Dis- Sheffield, England. He is currently complet- There were a large number of ques- tillery and Giants’ Causeway. At the ing a Master’s degree in education at the tions and comments from the audi- banquet, McCarthy gave an informal University of Sheffield, has his Ph.D. from ence. Campbell noted that the lack of talk on the role of robots in society the University of Exeter, England (1991), students having good ability in mathe- and what form new master-slave rela- an M.S. from New Mexico State University matics was hampering success in tions would take. Also, Mc Kevitt (1988), and a B.Sc. (Hons.) from University speech and image processing. Pat Hayes briefly thanked Murtagh and Camp- College, Dublin, Ireland (1985), all in com- (University of West Florida) sent a num- bell for their excellent organization puter science. His primary research inter- ber of e-mail messages stressing that and noted that he (Mc Kevitt) could be ests are in natural language processing, including the processing of pragmatics and accused of going for program chair of there is no crisis in AI and listed a large beliefs and intentions in dialogue, and he is number of successes in the field. He AICS-97 because his parents live just also interested in philosophy, multimedia, noted that NASA Ames current long- 20 miles up the road! Campbell also and the general area of AI. His e-mail term research program for planetary organized a number of informal tours address is [email protected]. exploration has AI as a central feature, for visiting dignitaries, including the and the total U.S. research budget Campbell family home, Grianan of

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