Re: [ontology-summit] Track on Cyc?

[Bob Smith <bobsmithttl@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Mike,

 

You raise good questions - and much current thinking has been focused on BIG Financial Systems and the "management" effectiveness from many points of view.

 

 IF I understand the recent work by OMG's Financial Domain Task Force and the Washington DC Workshop on applying semantic tools by EDM and others on that task force product and Road Map http://www.omg.org/edm-council/minutes.htm , it provides an excellent referent to describe the "problem space" that Peter addresses.

 

One roadmap can be found here: http://fdtf.omg.org/roadmap.pdf

 

Regards,

 

Bob

On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 5:47 AM, Mike Bennett <mbennett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

That would be good. It would also be valuable to unpack the
stated disconnect between the ontology and IT in terms of
ontology quality / QA related issues.

Dealing with the connection or otherwise between ontologies and
IT is something I think is relevant to a lot of people. All too
often the push towards the use of semantic technologies becomes a
push to do everything as triple stores and semantic queries,
without considering the use of ontologies within conventional
technology environments, I think.

Mike

On 27/01/2012 05:00, John F. Sowa wrote:
> In reviewing the discussions about Big Systems, I noticed that the
> world's biggest formal ontology, which has been used in conjunction
> with very large commercial applications hasn't been discussed.
>
> That is Cyc.  It was founded in 1984 as part of MCC and spun off
> as an independent company, CycCorp, in 1994.  They had 28 years
> of continuous development.  After the first 25 years, they had
> devoted 1000 person years (a full person millennium!) to the
> development.  They also have a long list of publications that
> are available for download:  http://cyc.com/cyc/technology/pubs
>
> If we really want to know what a large ontology system can do and
> how it can be used in conjunction with mainstream IT, I suggest
> that we devote an entire track of the Ontology Summit to Cyc.
>
> Among the many participants in Ontolog Forum, Doug Foxvog and
> Amanda Vizedom were employed at Cyc.  They could present talks
> about their experience at Cyc, what lessons they learned from it,
> and how their work at Cyc compares to projects that they have
> worked on since them.
>
> I would expect them to give a balanced treatment of the strengths
> and weaknesses of Cyc.  Many of us have had many criticisms
> about various aspects of Cyc, but any AI company that can
> stay in business for 28 years is a major achievement.  We
> should try to learn as much as we can from their experience.
>
> Another person who used Cyc extensively back in the 1990s is
> Bill Anderson.  He and his group worked on DoD projects that used
> Cyc to develop ontologies and applications.  As a result of that
> experience, they started their own company, Ontology Works,
> which has more recently been renamed High Fleet.
>
> I would like to hear a talk by Bill about his experiences with
> Cyc and how that led him and his colleagues to found their
> own company.  It would be very interesting to hear a comparison
> of the applications and methodologies used with Cyc and the
> experience they have had at Ontology Works and High Fleet.
>
> I would expect these talks to cover both positive and negative
> aspects of Cyc.  But it would also be good to invite somebody
> who is currently working at Cyc to present their views.  As
> an example, one of the biggest applications of Cyc is at
> the Cleveland Clinic:
>
> http://www.cyc.com/technology/whitepapers_dir/Harnessing_Cyc_to_Answer_Clincal_Researchers_ad_hoc_Queries.pdf
>
> I also spoke briefly to somebody from the Cleveland Clinic, who
> said that there was a large "disconnect" between the methods
> used for Cyc and the mainstream IT methods that their programmers
> were familiar with.  That is a very serious issue that has
> plagued many AI projects, and I'd like to hear about the issues
> from both ends:  the Cyc personnel and some knowledgeable IT
> developer at the Cleveland Clinic.
>
> This is the kind of track that would be highly informative
> for people with a background in either or both mainstream IT
> and AI technology.  And it's hard to find any ontology project
> that is bigger than Cyc.
>
> John
>
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