From Language to Knowledge: Starting Hawk

Abstract : This report describes work completed by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in support of DARPA's Rapid Knowledge Formation (RKF) program over the period from July 2000 to September 2003. The primary focus of the RKF program is to develop new technology to automate the task of transforming raw human- understandable information into encoded, machine-understandable information. The project described in this report addresses a central subtask of this task: converting natural language text into an encoded representation that can support computer inference. The technical approach taken in this effort is based on two key insights: First, we can make the translation task manageable by breaking it into successive stages of isolating information, then standardizing it, then encoding it, with each stage facilitated by proven components of natural language processing technology. Second, we can gain leverage during the translation process by exploiting human interaction at a number of distinct points along the way.

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