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[ba-ohs-talk] Architectures for Intelligent Systems


 From both the CG and PORT lists:
http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/arch.htm    (01)

"People communicate with each other in sentences that incorporate two kinds 
of information: propositions about some subject, and metalevel speech acts 
that specify how the propositional information is used as an assertion, a 
command, a question, or a promise. By means of speech acts, a group of 
people who have different areas of expertise can cooperate and dynamically 
reconfigure their social interactions to perform tasks and solve problems 
that would be difficult or impossible for any single individual. This paper 
proposes a framework for intelligent systems that consist of a variety of 
specialized components together with logic-based languages that can express 
propositions and speech acts about those propositions. The result is a 
system with a dynamically changing architecture that can be reconfigured in 
various ways: by a human knowledge engineer who specifies a script of 
speech acts that determine how the components interact; by a planning 
component that generates the speech acts to redirect the other components; 
or by a committee of components, which might include human assistants, 
whose speech acts serve to redirect one another. The components communicate 
by sending messages to a Linda-like blackboard, in which components accept 
messages that are either directed to them or that they consider themselves 
competent to handle. "    (02)

What's interesting about this paper, for me, is the reference to Linda-like 
blackboard system.  Nexist just happens to contain a Linda-like blackboard 
in its Content layer.  The programs T-Spaces (IBM), JavaSpaces (SUN) and 
something new from RogueWave) are all based on David Gelernter's Linda 
system, otherwise known as Tuple Spaces. Gelernter documented all this in 
his book _Mirror Worlds or: The  day software puts the universe in a 
shoebox...How it will happen and what it will mean_ (Oxford University 
Press, 1992) <note>recommended reading for system architects</note>    (03)

Jack    (04)