Parallel Computation And Computers For Artificial Intelligence

Parallel Computation and Computers for Artificial Intelligence

It has been widely recognized that artificial intelligence computations offer large potential for distributed and parallel processing. Unfortunately, not much is known about designing parallel AI algorithms and efficient, easy-to-use parallel computer architectures for AI applications. The field of parallel computation and computers for AI is in its infancy, but some significant ideas have appeared and initial practical experience has become available. The purpose of this book has been to collect in one volume contributions from several leading researchers and pioneers of AI that represent a sample of these ideas and experiences. This sample does not include all schools of thought nor contributions from all leading researchers, but it covers a relatively wide variety of views and topics and in this sense can be helpful in assessing the state ofthe art. We hope that the book will serve, at least, as a pointer to more specialized literature and that it will stimulate interest in the area of parallel AI processing. It has been a great pleasure and a privilege to cooperate with all contributors to this volume. They have my warmest thanks and gratitude. Mrs. Birgitta Knapp has assisted me in the editorial task and demonstrated a great deal of skill and patience. Janusz S. Kowalik vii INTRODUCTION Artificial intelligence (AI) computer programs can be very time-consuming.

Parallel Processing for Artificial Intelligence

Parallel processing for AI problems is of great current interest because of its potential for alleviating the computational demands of AI procedures. The articles in this book consider parallel processing for problems in several areas of artificial intelligence: image processing, knowledge representation in semantic networks, production rules, mechanization of logic, constraint satisfaction, parsing of natural language, data filtering and data mining. The publication is divided into six sections. The first addresses parallel computing for processing and understanding images. The second discusses parallel processing for semantic networks, which are widely used means for representing knowledge - methods which enable efficient and flexible processing of semantic networks are expected to have high utility for building large-scale knowledge-based systems. The third section explores the automatic parallel execution of production systems, which are used extensively in building rule-based expert systems - systems containing large numbers of rules are slow to execute and can significantly benefit from automatic parallel execution. The exploitation of parallelism for the mechanization of logic is dealt with in the fourth section. While sequential control aspects pose problems for the parallelization of production systems, logic has a purely declarative interpretation which does not demand a particular evaluation strategy. In this area, therefore, very large search spaces provide significant potential for parallelism. In particular, this is true for automated theorem proving. The fifth section considers the problem of constraint satisfaction, which is a useful abstraction of a number of important problems in AI and other fields of computer science. It also discusses the technique of consistent labeling as a preprocessing step in the constraint satisfaction problem. Section VI consists of two articles, each on a different, important topic. The first discusses parallel formulation for the Tree Adjoining Grammar (TAG), which is a powerful formalism for describing natural languages. The second examines the suitability of a parallel programming paradigm called Linda, for solving problems in artificial intelligence. Each of the areas discussed in the book holds many open problems, but it is believed that parallel processing will form a key ingredient in achieving at least partial solutions. It is hoped that the contributions, sourced from experts around the world, will inspire readers to take on these challenging areas of inquiry.

VLSI & Parallel Computing for Pattern Recognition & Artificial Intelligence