Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
AAAI was pleased to announce that the Eighteenth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI-06), celebrating fifty years of artificial intelligence, was collocated with the Twenty-First National Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Both conferences were held in Boston, Massachusetts, at the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center. The dates of the conferences were July 16-20, 2006.
The IAAI-06 Conference Chair was Bruce Porter, University of Texas at Austin.
Invited Speakers
Winning the DARPA Grand Challenge
Sebastian Thrun (Stanford University), Tuesday, July 18, 1:50–2:50 pm
The DARPA Grand Challenge was the most significant event in the field of robotics in more than a decade. A mobile ground robot had to traverse 132 miles of punishing desert terrain in less than ten hours. In 2004, the best robot only made 7.3 miles. A year later, Stanford won this historical challenge and cashed the $2M prize. This talk, delivered by the leader of the Stanford Racing Team, will provide insights into the software architecture of Stanford’s winning robot “Stanley.” The robot heavily relied on advanced sensor technology and advanced artificial intelligence to make sense out of the massive amounts of sensor data acquired by the vehicle. The talk will introduce you into the fascinating world of autonomous robotics, share with you many of the race insights, and discuss with you some of the implications for the future of our society.
Sebastian Thrun is an associate professor of computer science and director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL). Prior to winning the Grand Challenge, Thrun published seven books, nearly 300 refereed papers, won numerous best paper and career achievement awards, was named one of the “Brilliant Ten” by Popular Science, and served as principal investigator on six major DARPA research initiatives. Thrun’s research focuses on robotics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Stanley, the robot, was recently named “Best Robot Ever” by Wired Magazine.
Electrifying Knowledge Work: 362 Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence 1989-2006
Neil Jacobstein (Teknowledge Corporation), Wednesday, July 19, 10:20–11:20 am
Early-stage artificial intelligence has already produced a wide range of valuable applications in industry and government. Many of these applications have performed complex tasks such as planning, monitoring, design, risk assessment, diagnosis, training, process control, classification, and analysis. AAAI’s Innovative Applications of AI Conference has published over 360 successful applications of AI in fields as diverse as biotechnology, space flight, manufacturing, security, paleontology, construction, energy, music, military, intelligence, banking, telecommunications, news media, management, law, emergency services, agriculture, treaty verification, and many others. This talk will review the patterns that connect these applications over 18 years of the IAAI conference: what worked, what didn’t, and what were the key trends. None of these systems exhibited general intelligence, but each documented our ability to codify and distribute human problem-solving knowledge and put it to work.
Neil Jacobstein is CEO of TEKNOWLEDGE Corporation, a 25-year-old AI company. He was the chair of AAAI’s 2005 Innovative Applications of AI conference. He has been a technical consultant on projects for NSF, DARPA, NASA, NIH, EPA, DOE, NIST, NRO, GM, Ford, P&G, Boeing, Applied Materials, NPR, NAS, the Army’s STRICOM Technical Advisory Board, and others. In 1999, Jacobstein became a Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He received his BS Summa cum Laude from the University of Wisconsin and an MS from the University of Texas. He attended Stanford University’s Advanced Management College and Managing Innovation programs. Jacobstein was a graduate research intern and consultant at Xerox PARC.
Buchanan to Deliver Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture
What Do We Know About Knowledge?
Bruce G. Buchanan (University of Pittsburgh)
Bruce G. Buchanan, University Professor of Computer Science Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh, delivered the AAAI-06 Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture in Boston, Massachusetts. His address was delivered Wednesday, July 19, from 4:20–5:20 pm.
Intelligent systems need knowledge. However, the simple equation “knowledge is power” leaves three major questions unanswered. First, what do we mean by “knowledge,” second, what do we mean by “power,” and third, what do we mean by “is?”
In this talk, Buchanan examined these questions. In particular, he focused on some of the milestones in understanding the nature of knowledge and some of what we have learned from fifty years of AI. The discipline and detail required to write programs that use knowledge have given us some valuable lessons for implementing the knowledge principle. But there are still interesting challenges ahead.
Bruce Buchanan received a BA in mathematics from Ohio Wesleyan University (1961), and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy from Michigan State University (1966). He was on the faculty at Stanford University and the University of Pittsburgh, with appointments in computer science, philosophy, medicine, and intelligent systems. He is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. He has served on the editorial boards of several journals and has served as Secretary-Treasurer and President of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence.
For further information about the IAAI 2006 Conference, consult the following:
IAAI-06 Program Committee
Bruce Porter (Chair), University of Texas at Austin
William Cheetham (Cochair), General Electric Research
Steve Chien, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Diane Cook, University of Texas at Arlington
Usama Fayyad, Yahoo! Research Labs
Kai Goebel, General Electric Research
Mehmet Goker, Price Waterhouse
Karen Haigh, BBN Technologies
Micheal Hewett, Hewett Research
Randall Hill, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
Neil Jacobstein, Teknowledge Corporation
Risto Miikkulainen, University of Texas at Austin
Elaine Rich, University of Texas at Austin
John Riedl, University of Minnesota
Ted Senator
Howard Shrobe, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Reid Smith, Medstory, Inc.
Ramasamy Uthurusamy, General Motors Corporation