AAAI–94 / IAAI–94 The Twelfth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence / Sixth Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Registration Brochure Sponsored by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence JULY 31 – AUGUST 4, 1994 Washington State Convention and Trade Center Seattle, Washington AAAI–94 / IAAI–94 Conference Previews ... Please Join Us for AAAI-94! effort to recognize a broader range of sci- Please Join Us for IAAI-94! entific contributions. Reviewers and area • Three days of technical paper presen- chairs were asked to view themselves not • Presentations featuring sixteen de- tations by top scientists in the field as “gatekeepers” looking for reasons to ployed applications on a variety of • A series of invited speakers and pan- reject papers, but rather as “scouts” look- topics els, including the opening keynote ad- ing for interesting papers to accept. • AI-on-Line: a series of issues-oriented The program committee did an excel- dress by Raj Reddy panels and talks lent job, increasing both the number and • Twenty four-hour tutorials taught by • A series of invited speakers and pan- variety of accepted papers. Of the 780 pa- experienced scientists and practitioners pers originally submitted, 55 were either els, including the opening keynote ad- in AI (separate registration fee) withdrawn by their authors or rejected dress by Raj Reddy • AAAI–94 / IAAI Joint Exhibition without review for arriving after the spec- • AAAI–94 Mobile Robot Exhibition and ified due date or for significantly exceed- he Sixth Annual Conference on In- Competition ing specified length limitations. Of the re- novative Applications of Artificial • Robot-Building Laboratory (separate maining 725 papers, 222 were accepted TIntelligence will showcase the most registration fee) for the conference. Thus, AAAI-94 will be impressive deployed AI applications of the past year. These applications are win- • Machine Translation Exhibit a bigger conference than in previous ners of a worldwide competition for the • AI Art Show years, presenting a good cross-section of AI research. Familiar session topics in- best uses of AI technology to solve real- • Student Abstract and Poster Program clude qualitative reasoning, case-based world problems. Winning applications • Workshops (by invitation only) reasoning, and constraint satisfaction. Ses- need to be fully deployed and achieve sion topics that have not appeared in re- significant business benefit. The organiza- ach year, the National Conference cent conference years include genetic al- tions honored this year will include many on Artificial Intelligence provides a gorithms and neural nets. Completely of the most prestigious names in the busi- unique opportunity for timely inter- E new topics include theater and video, art ness world (Lockheed, EDS, Countrywide action and communication among re- and music, believable agents, and learn- Funding, Pacific Bell, Bell Atlantic, IBM, searchers and practitioners from all areas ing robotic agents. AT&T, DuPont) and in the government of AI. This year—in response to popular AAAI-94 also will have several other (IRS, US Customs, US Navy, Texas Men- demand—the program cochairs, the area exciting programs. The new Student Ab- tal health, Australian Dept. of Veterans’ chairs, and the program committee made stract and Poster Program, which got over Affairs). The IAAI conferences continue a special effort to broaden participation 100 submissions, will present a wonderful to demonstrate and showcase the impor- and enliven the conference by increasing opportunity for all of us to get acquainted tance of using AI technology within criti- the number and variety of papers accept- with some of the up-and-coming talent cal business functions. ed for presentation and for publication in and their great new research ideas. As in Applications will be presented in talks the proceedings. recent years, there will be a video track that are accompanied by audiovisual pre- Both the call for papers and an article in (with publication for the first time this sentations and live demonstrations. Meet- the Fall, 1993 issue of AI Magazine an- year as a video collection by AAAI), a ro- the-author discussions at the end of each nounced the goal of increasing conference bot competition, and a robot exhibition. A session encourage close interaction be- participation and invited prospective au- new AI and the Arts exhibition will follow tween presenters and other conference thors to submit papers on a variety of top- the very engaging exhibition introduced participants. IAAI also includes the AI ics, including those that “describe theoret- at AAAI-92, and there will also be a new On-Line panels focusing on issues of par- ical, empirical, or experimental results; Machine Translation exhibition. In addi- ticular interest to the business and gov- represent areas of AI that may have been tion to an exciting slate of invited speakers ernment communities. under-represented in recent conferences; (which, at press time, was not yet final- IAAI-94 sessions have been scheduled present promising new research concepts, ized), the Keynote address will be given to allow participants to attend Raj Red- techniques, or perspectives; or discuss is- by Professor Raj Reddy of Carnegie Mel- dy’s address as well as to engage in some sues that cross traditional sub-disciplinary lon University and the AAAI Presidential of the other AAAI activities, including tu- boundaries.” The community responded Address will be given by Professor Bar- torials, workshops, and the exhibition. enthusiastically, submitting 780 papers to bara Grosz of Harvard University. Please join us for a stimulating and re- the conference. Extrapolating from the last In sum, the AI community set a goal warding conference! few years, this is approximately thirty per- this year to revitalize the AAAI confer- cent higher than the expected number of ence, to restore its atmosphere of excite- Elizabeth Byrnes, IAAI-94 Chair submitted papers. Moreover, a straw vote ment, innovation, controversy, and intel- Jan Aikins, IAAI-94 Cochair among the area chairs indicates that the lectual engagement. So far, the quality of submitted papers was at least as community and conference committee high as in previous years. have made great strides toward achieving Each paper was reviewed by three re- that goal. The remaining essential ele- viewers under the supervision of one of ment? YOU! Please join us at AAAI-94. twenty-three senior members of the AI community who served as area chairs. Barbara Hayes-Roth and Richard Korf, Evaluation criteria were expanded in an Program Cochairs, AAAI-94 2 AAAI–94 / IAAI–94 Conferences AAAI Showcase Exhibit on Special Invited Talks Featured at AAAI–94 / IAAI–94. .. Machine Translation Keynote Address AAAI Presidential Address August 3–4 The Excitement of AI Collaborative Systems Machine translation is an endeavor that predates even the Dartmouth meeting of- Raj Reddy Barbara J. Grosz ten viewed as the beginning of AI. To Raj Reddy is Dean of the Barbara J. Grosz is Gordon demonstrate its continued progress and School of Computer Sci- McKay Professor of Com- recent developments, AAAI will this year ence at Carnegie Mellon puter Science in the Divi- include a showcase exhibit of machine University and the Herbert sion of Applied Sciences at translation (MT) systems. A. Simon University Pro- Harvard University. Grosz A number of MT systems and MT fessor of Computer Science pioneered research in workbenches, both research and commer- and Robotics. Dr. Reddy computational modeling cial, will participate, providing spectators joined Carnegie Mellon’s Department of of discourse and developed the discourse with hands-on experiences as well as il- Computer Science in 1969 and served as component of a number of natural-lan- lustrative translation of new texts. In ad- Director of the Robotics Institute from guage processing systems. Her current re- dition, system builders will describe the 1979 to 1992. He was previously an Assis- search includes development of computa- operation and structure of their systems tant Professor of Computer Science at tional models of collaborative planning, in some detail. Stanford University from 1966 to 1969, investigations of the interactions between The showcase will last two days—Au- and served as an Applied Science Repre- intonation and discourse, and design of gust 3 and 4, 1994. sentative for International Business Ma- techniques for combining natural lan- chines Corporation (IBM) in Australia guage and graphics. from 1960 to 1963. Professor Grosz is President of AAAI AI-Based Arts Exhibition Dr. Reddy’s research interests include (1993–1995), and a Fellow of the Ameri- the study of human-computer interaction can Association for the Advancement of August 2-4 and artificial intelligence. His current re- Science and the American Association for Applications of computing in entertain- search projects include speech recognition Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). Before join- ment and the arts have grown since the and understanding systems; collaborative ing the faculty at Harvard, she was Direc- Arts Exhibition at AAAI-92. AI has a spe- writing, design and planning; JIT Learn- tor of the Natural Language program at cial role to play in this area, because the ing Technologies; and the Automated SRI International, and cofounder of the most sophisticated applications depend Machine Shop project. Center for the Study of Language and In- on machines functioning independently Dr. Reddy’s professional