{ "paper_id": "T75-2026", "header": { "generated_with": "S2ORC 1.0.0", "date_generated": "2023-01-19T07:43:03.823846Z" }, "title": "METHODOLOGY IN AI AND NATURAL LANGUAGE UNDERSTANDING", "authors": [ { "first": "Yorick", "middle": [], "last": "Wilks", "suffix": "", "affiliation": {}, "email": "" } ], "year": "", "venue": null, "identifiers": {}, "abstract": "", "pdf_parse": { "paper_id": "T75-2026", "_pdf_hash": "", "abstract": [], "body_text": [ { "text": "But it is not easy to tease this serious difference out from the skein of non-serious methodological discussions.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "By \"non-serious methodological ete.\" I mean such agreed points as that (i) it would be nicer to have an understanding system working with a vocabulary of Nk words rather than Mk, where N>M, and moreover, that the vocabularies should contain words of maximally different types: so that \"house\", \"fish\", \"committee\" and \"testimonial\" would be a better vocabulary than \"house\", \"cottage\", \"palace\" and \"apartment block.\" And that, (ii) it would be nicer to have an understanding system that correctly understood N% of input sentences than one which understood M%.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "When I say non-serlous here I do not mean unimportant, but only that nothing theoretical is in question; so that, for example, it could be only an arbitrary choice whether or not a system that understood correctly 95% of sentences from a 3000 word vocabulary was or was not better than one which understood 98% from a 1000 word vocabulary. Indeed, the very sizes of the vocabularies and success rates in the example show that such a choice, however arbitrary, is not one we are likely to be called upon to make in the near future, so let us press a little deeper.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [ { "start": 340, "end": 475, "text": "Indeed, the very sizes of the vocabularies and success rates in the example show that such a choice, however arbitrary,", "ref_id": null } ], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "Consider the following three points, which I will name for ease of subsequent reference: (I) Theory and practice: \"Trying hard to make a system work is all very well, but it's too success-oriented, what we need at the moment is more theoretlcal work\".", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "(2) AI a~d ~ience:", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "\"What we are after is the right set of rules, and expressions of real world knowledge, for understanding natural language: no approximate, 95%, solutions will do, just as they won't do in physics\".", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "(3) Where to st~: \"Since difficult examples clearly require reasoning to be understood, we cannot even begin without such a theory because, without it, we could 130 not know of even an apparently simple example that it did NOT require reasoning in order to be understood. \" The above three positions are not intended to be a parody, and certainly not a parody of anyone in particular's views. I have not in fact heard all three from the same person, even though, in my view, they constitute a coherent position taken together: one which I believe to be not only wrong, and I will come to that, but also harmful.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [ { "start": 18, "end": 133, "text": "\"Since difficult examples clearly require reasoning to be understood, we cannot even begin without such", "ref_id": null }, { "start": 284, "end": 521, "text": "\" The above three positions are not intended to be a parody, and certainly not a parody of anyone in particular's views. I have not in fact heard all three from the same person, even though, in my view, they constitute", "ref_id": null } ], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "Let ", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "I I i I ! ! J I t ! I I ! ! ! ! ! 1 1 I !", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "i.e. the finding of the correct-in-context reading for a sentence, as opposed to the standard linguistic view, which is that the task is the finding of a range of possible readings, independent of context (iv) emphasis on the expression of rules, structures, and information within an operational/procedural/computational environment.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "Conventional linguistics has still not appreciated the force of these points, which are of course commonplace in A.I. (Wilks 1974) why such an activity can hardly be called \"theoretical\", in any strong sense, however worthwhile it may be.", "cite_spans": [ { "start": 118, "end": 130, "text": "(Wilks 1974)", "ref_id": "BIBREF3" } ], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "That it i_~s worthwhile is not being questioned here.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "Nor could it be, since I am engaged in the same activity myself (Wilks 1975b Consider two counter-examples: one produced against the \"expectation as basic mechanism of parsing\" hypothesis of Riesbeck (Riesbeck 1974) , and one against my own \"preference as basic mechanism etc.\" (Wilks 1975c) hypothesis. Riesbeck considers sentences such as \"John went hunting and shot a buck\", where, putting it simply, the concept of hunting causes the system to expect more about hunting and so it resolves \"buck\" correctly as the animal and not the cash.", "cite_spans": [ { "start": 64, "end": 76, "text": "(Wilks 1975b", "ref_id": "BIBREF5" }, { "start": 200, "end": 215, "text": "(Riesbeck 1974)", "ref_id": "BIBREF1" }, { "start": 278, "end": 291, "text": "(Wilks 1975c)", "ref_id": null } ], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "One then immediately thinks of \"John went hunting and lost fifty bucks\".", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "Conversely, in my own system I make much of the preference of concepts for other concepts to play certain roles, so that for example in \"John tasted the gin\", \"gin\" will be resolved as the drink and not the trap, because of the preference of tasting for an edible or potable object like the liquid gin.", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null }, { "text": "Someone then, plausibly enough, comes up with \"He licked the gun all over and the stock tasted good\", where the preference on a small scale would get the wrong \"soup\" sense of \"stock\", and not the \"gun part\". ", "cite_spans": [], "ref_spans": [], "eq_spans": [], "section": "", "sec_num": null } ], "back_matter": [], "bib_entries": { "BIBREF0": { "ref_id": "b0", "title": "A framework for representing knowledge", "authors": [ { "first": "M", "middle": [], "last": "Minsky", "suffix": "" } ], "year": 1974, "venue": "MIT AI Memo NO", "volume": "306", "issue": "", "pages": "", "other_ids": {}, "num": null, "urls": [], "raw_text": "Minsky, M., \"A framework for representing knowledge\", MIT AI Memo NO, 306, 1974.", "links": null }, "BIBREF1": { "ref_id": "b1", "title": "Computational understanding", "authors": [ { "first": "C", "middle": [], "last": "Riesbeck", "suffix": "" } ], "year": 1974, "venue": "", "volume": "", "issue": "", "pages": "", "other_ids": {}, "num": null, "urls": [], "raw_text": "Riesbeck, C., \"Computational understanding\", Memo from ISSCO No. ~, 1974.", "links": null }, "BIBREF2": { "ref_id": "b2", "title": "Computable Semantic Systems Development Corp", "authors": [ { "first": "Y", "middle": [], "last": "Wilks", "suffix": "" }, { "first": "Y", "middle": [], "last": "Wilks", "suffix": "" } ], "year": 1968, "venue": "Mind, 1971. and Natural", "volume": "", "issue": "", "pages": "", "other_ids": {}, "num": null, "urls": [], "raw_text": "Wilks, Y., Derivations\", Memo, 1968. \"Computable Semantic Systems Development Corp., Wilks, Y., \"Decidability Language\", Mind, 1971. and Natural", "links": null }, "BIBREF3": { "ref_id": "b3", "title": "One Small Head", "authors": [ { "first": "Y", "middle": [], "last": "Wilks", "suffix": "" } ], "year": 1974, "venue": "Foundations of Language", "volume": "", "issue": "", "pages": "", "other_ids": {}, "num": null, "urls": [], "raw_text": "Wilks, Y., \"One Small Head\", Foundations of Language, 1974.", "links": null }, "BIBREF4": { "ref_id": "b4", "title": "Philosophy of Language\" in Notes for the Tutorial on ComDutatlonal Semantics", "authors": [ { "first": "Y", "middle": [], "last": "Wilks", "suffix": "" } ], "year": 1975, "venue": "", "volume": "", "issue": "", "pages": "", "other_ids": {}, "num": null, "urls": [], "raw_text": "Wilks, Y., \"Philosophy of Language\" in Notes for the Tutorial on ComDutatlonal Semantics, ISSCO, Castagnola, 1975a.", "links": null }, "BIBREF5": { "ref_id": "b5", "title": "A preferential Pattern-matchlng Semantics for Natural Language Inference", "authors": [ { "first": "Y", "middle": [], "last": "Wilks", "suffix": "" } ], "year": 1975, "venue": "Artificial Intelli~enoe", "volume": "", "issue": "", "pages": "", "other_ids": {}, "num": null, "urls": [], "raw_text": "Wilks , Y., \"A preferential Pattern-matchlng Semantics for Natural Language Inference\", Artificial Intelli~enoe, 1975b.", "links": null }, "BIBREF6": { "ref_id": "b6", "title": "An intelligent analyzer and understander of English", "authors": [ { "first": "Y", "middle": [], "last": "Wilks", "suffix": "" } ], "year": 1972, "venue": "", "volume": "", "issue": "", "pages": "", "other_ids": {}, "num": null, "urls": [], "raw_text": "Wilks, Y., \"An intelligent analyzer and understander of English\", Comm. 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