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Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming (1992)

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Re: Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming (1992)

#21

Post by hmcamp »

PaulHoule wrote: post #19
BlueTemplar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What changed ?

When people talk about AI today they are usually talking about machine learning systems based in neural networks. The kind of symbolic AI described in this book went through several cycles of hype and disappointment to the point where many think it is obsolete. People often do it connect recent breakthroughs in SAT and SMT solvers with this history and for that matter production rules engines are dramatically better…

Hi @Paul, I’m a newbie in this field. Are you saying that this branch of AI isn’t relevant when compared to machine learning that’s based on neural networks?

Re: Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming (1992)

#24

Post by dunefox »

hmcamp wrote: post #21
PaulHoule wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people talk about AI today they are usually talking about machine learning systems based in neural networks. The kind of symbolic AI described in this book went through several cycles of hype and disappointment to the point where many think it is obsolete. People often do it connect recent breakthroughs in SAT and SMT solvers with this history and for that matter production rules engines are dramatically better…

Hi @Paul, I’m a newbie in this field. Are you saying that this branch of AI isn’t relevant when compared to machine learning that’s based on neural networks?

Mostly not, no.

Re: Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming (1992)

#25

Post by zelphirkalt »

medo-bear wrote: post #8
zelphirkalt wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emacs would be a fine choice, but is not mandatory, if you can live with less support for parens found in other editors. Emacs traditionally excels at working with lispy languages and REPLs. I started working through the book, but did not feel like using Common Lisp. Instead I used GNU Guile. I am not very far in the book yet, but so far I was able to translate between Common Lisp and Scheme easily. So for me the way…

this is ridiculous for a first reading. its the same as telling someone to use common lisp for sicp. why? maybe on a second or third reading for fun but to digest this book just use a well supported language like common lisp for which the book was written

I can switch to Common Lisp at any time later in the book, if I feel, that translating to Scheme is too difficult for me. I will need to understand CL anyway, to do the translation.

What I do not like about CL is probably one of the "wars" fought in computer programming: I do not like, that I have to use funcall, instead of simply wrapping with parens. I do not like, that variables and functions are in separate namespaces. However, if going through the book using Scheme gets too complicated, these are not things I cannot get over.

EDIT: I probably also do not like the less emphasis on pure functions in CL. I think while solving some exercises I already did some things, so that I could solve without mutating global state. But it's been a while since I last continued working through the book, so I am not so sure. I get that sometimes a simple side-effect can be practical, but this is my free time occupation and I get joy from doing things in clean ways. Nevertheless, Common Lisp is one of the languages, which I wish I could actually work in (like on the job, not in my free time), when I compare it to things like Python, JavaScript and so on. At least it is in the family of languages I enjoy using.

Re: Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming (1992)

#26

Post by zelphirkalt »

phyrex wrote: post #20
zelphirkalt wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emacs would be a fine choice, but is not mandatory, if you can live with less support for parens found in other editors. Emacs traditionally excels at working with lispy languages and REPLs. I started working through the book, but did not feel like using Common Lisp. Instead I used GNU Guile. I am not very far in the book yet, but so far I was able to translate between Common Lisp and Scheme easily. So for me the way…

Lucky you, one of the chapters implements scheme. Seriously though, use CL, you’re not going to have a good time with scheme with this book. It’s making use of some CL specific behaviours

Thanks for the warning and look-ahead!

Re: Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming (1992)

#27

Post by MontyCarloHall »

It is interesting how almost none of these paradigms/principles are relevant to what we think of as AI today. Lisp, a language specifically formulated for AI applications, is now mostly relevant in the context of programming language theory (and essentially irrelevant to the statistical programming/linear algebra toolkits that underpin modern AI applications). Instead, Fortran and its descendants are actually what power today’s AI programs. Nobody could have foreseen this in the 50s!

Re: Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming (1992)

#28

Post by alaaalawi »

wodenokoto wrote: post #2

Can anyone recommend a source for setting up an environment in Linux to run the code in this book? Do I need to learn eMacs to get close to a “modern lisp” programming environment?

Many people will fret when mentioning a commercial vendor. but IMHO and YMMV the leaset systems to get going with the least hassle would be either Lispworks or Allegro and both offer trial versions not getting in your way throughout the book (even though I'm Emacs SLIME user for long time). I'm interested in user minimzing unrelated side topics and spiral customization (I love them) and focusing on the book

Re: Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming (1992)

#29

Post by potatoman22 »

hmcamp wrote: post #21
PaulHoule wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people talk about AI today they are usually talking about machine learning systems based in neural networks. The kind of symbolic AI described in this book went through several cycles of hype and disappointment to the point where many think it is obsolete. People often do it connect recent breakthroughs in SAT and SMT solvers with this history and for that matter production rules engines are dramatically better…

Hi @Paul, I’m a newbie in this field. Are you saying that this branch of AI isn’t relevant when compared to machine learning that’s based on neural networks?

The most relevant field this would apply to is AI for games.

Re: Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming (1992)

#30

Post by tel »

PaulHoule wrote: post #19
BlueTemplar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What changed ?

When people talk about AI today they are usually talking about machine learning systems based in neural networks. The kind of symbolic AI described in this book went through several cycles of hype and disappointment to the point where many think it is obsolete. People often do it connect recent breakthroughs in SAT and SMT solvers with this history and for that matter production rules engines are dramatically better…

Maybe if you define AI to be “technology that could plausibly lead to AGI”, but everything in this book is still terrifically relevant for many practical “how to get my computer to solve this semi-open ended search problem efficiently”. Which is far from uncommon.
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