[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)