Cyc: toward programs with common sense

Cyc is a bold attempt to assemble a massive knowledge base (on the order of 108 axioms) spanning human consensus knowledge. This article examines the need for such an undertaking and reviews the authos' efforts over the past five years to begin its construction. The methodology and history of the project are briefly discussed, followed by a more developed treatment of the current state of the representation language used (epistemological level), techniques for efficient inferencing and default reasoning (heuristic level), and the content and organization of the knowledge base.

[1]  Hector J. Levesque,et al.  Krypton: A Functional Approach to Knowledge Representation , 1983, Computer.

[2]  W. W. Bledsoe,et al.  Non-Resolution Theorem Proving , 1977, Artif. Intell..

[3]  John McCarthy,et al.  Applications of Circumscription to Formalizing Common Sense Knowledge , 1987, NMR.

[4]  Bruce G. Buchanan,et al.  Meta-Level Knowledge: Overview and Applications , 1977, IJCAI.

[5]  Kenneth D. Forbus.  Qualitative physics: past present and future , 1988 .

[6]  Mark Derthick.  An Epistemological Level Interface for CYC , 1990 .

[7]  Richard W. Weyhrauch,et al.  Prolegomena to a Theory of Mechanized Formal Reasoning , 1980, Artif. Intell..

[8]  Patrick J. Hayes,et al.  Some problems and non-problems in representation theory , 1974 .

[9]  James F. Allen.  Maintaining knowledge about temporal intervals , 1983, CACM.

[10]  Daniel G. Bobrow,et al.  On Overview of KRL, a Knowledge Representation Language , 1976, Cogn. Sci..

[11]  Brian C. Williams,et al.  MINIMA: A Symbolic Approach to Qualitative Algebraic Reasoning , 1988, AAAI.

[12]  Ramanathan V. Guha,et al.  The Representation of Defaults in Cyc , 1990, AAAI.

[13]  John McCarthy,et al.  Programs with common sense , 1960 .

[14]  Jon Doyle,et al.  A Truth Maintenance System , 1979, Artif. Intell..

[15]  Drew McDermott,et al.  A Temporal Logic for Reasoning About Processes and Plans , 1982, Cogn. Sci..

[16]  D. McDermott.  A Temporal Logic for Reasoning About Processes and Plans , 1982, Cogn. Sci..

[17]  Elliot Soloway,et al.  Assessing the Maintainability of XCON-in-RIME: Coping with the Problems of a VERY Large Rule-Base , 1987, AAAI.

[18]  Robert C. Moore.  The Role of Logic in Knowledge Representation and Commonsense Reasoning , 1982, AAAI.

[19]  Inderjeet Mani,et al.  Knowledge and natural language processing , 1990, CACM.

[20]  John McCarthy.  First Order Theories of Individual Concepts and Propositions. , 1979 .