Pat,
Can you point me to an application of OpenCyc (one that I can view and
test with a browser or test after downloading and installing for free) that
gives a good example of interoperability among programs created by two or
more separate development groups? Where can I find the translator that
takes a KB developed using SUMO and translates it into OpenCyc assertions?
Is there a web site where we can test out the Cyc language understanding
function? Can we modify modules of that program to see if a different
approach will result in superior performance? If a commercial company wants
to use the Cyc reasoning engine can they do it without paying royalties? Is
there a set of separately developed databases integrated via OpenCyc that
can be globally queried by either a web browser, or by downloading and
installing? Are there a collaborative open-source projects to create
applications using OpenCyc, open to contributions from any interested party,
with the results freely usable? (01)
> Under the circumstances, to
> suggest spending millions of public dollars to re-create something
> functionally indistinguishable from it seems quixotic at best, and
> irresponsible at worst. (02)
If the existing OpenCyc cannot do all of the above (and it can't) then it is
**not** "functionally indistinguishable" from the FO and associated programs
that would result from this project. I know that the Cyc is technically
*capable* of doing those things, if some open community of users were to
adopt it for that purpose and put effort into developing it in that
direction, but no such community now exists. I too have a copy of the full
Cyc, but I have absolutely no incentive to try to develop any applications
for it because I know that any interesting application would have to be
developed by a rather large community of developers working together, and no
such community now exists for Cyc as far as I can tell. Developing a modest
application on my own would not in any way advance the goal of semantic
interoperability. That is one of the lessons we should have learned from
the experience of the past seven years, since the first OpenCyc became
available. In the meantime, 700 billion dollars and counting of economic
inefficiency are down the drain. (03)
If there is an open-source open-participation project using OpenCyc that is
aimed at developing a language-understanding program, please point me to it.
If not, please recognize and admit that there are things that an FO
consortium could do that are not now being done, and are not likely to be
done, by a group of Cyc users in the foreseeable future without funding of
some project to that purpose. (04)
> > [PC] , and does not now advertise an ability to translate among
> alternative
> > representations.
>
> [PH] Fair enough. BUt if this is supposed to the raison d'etre for the FO,
> then demonstration of how to achieve such translations and
> interoperabilty in a few nontrivial cases would be a good place to
> begin. We managed to do this in the IKRIS project, for example, to
> limited but measurable extent. Cyc was one of the targets, in fact. I
> bet that a well-designed and convincing proposal to achieve multi-path
> interoperability between a large number (say, 20 or so ) existing
> formalisms and ontologies and notations could in fact attract
> substantial funding right now, as many government agencies have
> identified this as a major problem area. (05)
If there is such a proposal in the works with the goal of creating
open-source Cyc-powered programs open to participation from any source, it
might be a good substitute for the FO project if it has a natural-language
understanding component, and I would be happy to participate, but I am
unaware of it. I have read at least some of the IKRIS reports, and know
that you also have an interest in (and optimism about) enabling translation
among alternative representations. So then why don't you organize such a
project if it is likely to attract funding? I will be happy to help in any
way I can. (06)
Given the large economic costs of the delay involved in taking a very slow
incremental approach with many isolated projects, I think we should have
some sense of urgency in organizing such an open collaborative project,
whatever you call it. But the resulting products do need to be fully open
source and easy to test by casual inspection, in order to encourage new
users. Can you provide us with your counter-proposal? (07)
Pat (08)
Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc.
908-561-3416
cell: 908-565-4053
cassidy@xxxxxxxxx (09)
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