Our pay software at work needs a Prolog engine (SWI). I think it's exactly where it shines : a complex logic with a lot of small rules that would be a nightmare to implement and maintain with a if / else logic.
Ask HN: Production Prolog in 2020?
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Re: Ask HN: Production Prolog in 2020?
#12I think Prolog and logic programming will have a second renaissance. I think at the very least a general artificial intelligence would require a logical inference engine similar to Prolog.
I'm pretty sure reasoning is important towards that goal, but how that is achieved is much less clear. Perhaps some probabilistic additions at the least.
Re: Ask HN: Production Prolog in 2020?
#13I think Prolog and logic programming will have a second renaissance. I think at the very least a general artificial intelligence would require a logical inference engine similar to Prolog.
I think it's actually the complete opposite. The current biomimetism direction being privileged by the modern A.I. trends is most likely the correct way to achieve "True" A.I. However, Inference-based A.I. is actually needed to properly tackle many of the business problems that are being thrown at ML systems today. Explainability and bias reduction can probably only be be taken so far with the current approaches, and…
The inference-based methods in AI qre more likely to he of the "probabilistic graphical models" variety (there are already marriages of Bayesian and Deep Learning techniques), and less likely to be of the "first order predicate calculus" variety. We humans don't have a particularly strong logical inference engine either - unless properly trained, people make the silliest logical mistakes and arrive at wrong conclusions all the time.
Re: Ask HN: Production Prolog in 2020?
#14TerminusDB is a new project being implemented in Prolog:
https://github.com/terminusdb/terminusdb-server
Re: Ask HN: Production Prolog in 2020?
#15Our pay software at work needs a Prolog engine (SWI). I think it's exactly where it shines : a complex logic with a lot of small rules that would be a nightmare to implement and maintain with a if / else logic.
I implemented something similar to that at a payments company a while back, but not with prolog because I couldn't get buy-in. I wrote a rules engine expressed as SQL tables, and it was absolutely better than if-else or switch. It let us delete thousands of lines of code and also slap on a UI so that the people managing the payments rules could make changes themselves. Highly recommend.
Re: Ask HN: Production Prolog in 2020?
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's actually the complete opposite. The current biomimetism direction being privileged by the modern A.I. trends is most likely the correct way to achieve "True" A.I. However, Inference-based A.I. is actually needed to properly tackle many of the business problems that are being thrown at ML systems today. Explainability and bias reduction can probably only be be taken so far with the current approaches, and…
The inference-based methods in AI qre more likely to he of the "probabilistic graphical models" variety (there are already marriages of Bayesian and Deep Learning techniques), and less likely to be of the "first order predicate calculus" variety. We humans don't have a particularly strong logical inference engine either - unless properly trained, people make the silliest logical mistakes and arrive at wrong conclusio…
Right, I meant "prolog-style formal inference engine". My point is that this "human imperfection" also present in probabilistic engines have artifacts that are fundamentally at odds with many business requirements where we are attempting to shoehorn then.
It's almost more of a cultural issue than a technical one. The level of explainability currently desired from automated systems is possibly not achievable, simply because we want to uphold them to a different standard.
Re: Ask HN: Production Prolog in 2020?
#17Upcoming Rust lifetime analysis engine, Polonius.
http://smallcultfollowing.com/babysteps/blog/2018/04/27/an-a...
Re: Ask HN: Production Prolog in 2020?
#18I really like working with https://mercurylang.org/ ; I think there are a few companies that use it for production software.
Re: Ask HN: Production Prolog in 2020?
#19I think Prolog and logic programming will have a second renaissance. I think at the very least a general artificial intelligence would require a logical inference engine similar to Prolog.
Do any of the non-artificial intelligences walking around out there contain a logical inference engine similar to Prolog?
Do any birds flying around have engines?
Re: Ask HN: Production Prolog in 2020?
#20I have used Prolog in a few professional projects. I think if they came out with a version in hardware like they use to have lisp machines, it would have much better performance.
There is the Warren Abstract Machine [1], the Lisp Machines usually compiled to a virtual machine that was implemented by the underlying hardware.