Re: SUO: a silly question about the new modular architecture
Adam,
The theorem prover is the centerpiece. All the rest is ASMOP
(A Simple Matter of Programming). And it's not very difficult
programming either.
Following is Seth's wish list, broken down with a sketch of how
each item could be provided:
> I believe that the most
> useful SUMO would have a front end tool where the ~user~ answers a set of
> questions and clicks on a set of contexts .. the tool would then generate
> the needed ontology.
You could handle this with ripple-down programming tools, which are
essentially multi-branching if-then-else rules generated from
questionnaires. For more info, see Paul Compton's home page:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~compton/
Following is a brief excerpt that suggests how easy it is for
non-programmers to generate such things:
This approach is now used in commercial systems in medicine
for pathology reporting developed by Pacific Knowledge Systems.
Pathologists can add rules to these systems at the rate of about
one per minute. By correcting a few errors per day they end up
with very sophisticated systems of thousands of rules, with very
little effort. These systems are now in routine use in a number
of laboratories. Other tools based on RDR have been developed by
HNK and Sricom. but I have little information on these developments.
Basically, you could use the RDR tools to ask the questions and to
select the modules needed for any customized ontology. RDR rules
have been used for database customization, and they could be adapted
to selecting the necessary modules for ontologies as well. Note that
the RDR tools are easy enough to use that pathologists create their
own rules -- by a process a lot like answering questions and making
corrections when it gives the wrong answers.
I'm not saying that it would be done overnight, but I believe that
some outstanding tools could be developed by one person in about
a few month's time.
> Then where certain axioms were still
> unacceptable, one
> could replace them individually ... the tool would then thread through the
> selected knowledge and delete any contradictions and suggest where new
> axioms were needed.
This is a task for which a theorem prover is needed. It could check
for compatibility of different modules and suggest where there might
be contradictions. It could be combined with RDR rules.
John Sowa