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CONCEPTS OF LOGICAL AI

John McCarthy
Computer Science Department
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
jmc@cs.stanford.edu
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/

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Abstract:

Logical AI involves representing knowledge of an agent's world, its goals and the current situation by sentences in logic. The agent decides what to do by inferring that a certain action or course of action is appropriate to achieve the goals. We characterize briefly a large number of concepts that have arisen in research in logical AI.

Reaching human-level AI requires programs that deal with the common sense informatic situation. Human-level logical AI requires extensions to the way logic is used in formalizing branches of mathematics and physical science. It also seems to require extensions to the logics themselves, both in the formalism for expressing knowledge and the reasoning used to reach conclusions.

A large number of concepts need to be studied to achieve logical AI of human level. This article presents candidates. The references, though numerous, to articles concerning these concepts are still insufficient, and I'll be grateful for more, especially for papers available on the web.

This article is available in several forms via http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/concepts-ai.html.





John McCarthy
Sun May 30 15:33:11 PDT 1999