Worked with Roger Schank in Early AI

Was always interested linguistic connections.  He was a client of ours.  I would not call him a theorist,  much more of an adept salesman of the leading edge.

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Roger C. Schank, Theorist of Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 76

By The New York Times, February 22, 2023

Outspoken and blustery, Schank was viewed as an ornery eccentric in A.I. circles, but he was also engaging, articulate, and a very effective salesman for his ideas.

Roger C. Schank, a scientist who made influential contributions to the field of artificial intelligence and then, as an academic, author and entrepreneur, focused on how people learn, died on Jan. 29 in Shelburne, Vt. He was 76.

His wife, Annie Schank, said the cause was heart failure. She added that Dr. Schank, who lived in Quebec, had been in failing health for more than a year.

Dr. Schank's research combined linguistics, cognitive science and computing. In a 1995 essay, he described the common theme of his varied projects in academics and business as "trying to understand the nature of the human mind" and "building models of the human mind on the computer."

In the late 1960s and '70s, Dr. Schank developed ideas for how to represent in symbols for a computer simple concepts — like people and places, objects and events, cause-and-effect relationships — that humans describe with words. His model was called "conceptual dependency theory."

From The New York Times

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Schank Academy

 I had mentioned reading some comments by Roger Schank.   Also noted he now has an 'academy', Emphases in Cyber Security, Software Development and Data Analytics.  Always liked his fresh approaches, even criticisms of  our efforts.  Let me know of your experience with their offerings

Schank Academy

Online, mentored courses

Our courses are entirely online, but they are not like any online courses you have ever seen. You will not be watching boring video lectures and taking tests; you will learn by doing with the help of knowledgeable mentors who are always available to provide meaningful advice and feedback on your work.  ... 

Contact about his offerings.

IBM and AI. An Abandonment of Watson?

 I see that our interesting correspondent and critic from before the first AI winter, Roger Schank, has posted a note strongly criticizing IBM on AI and cognitive claims.  Below an excerpt, link through to more: 

They are not doing "cognitive computing" no matter how many times they say they are  Update: February 2021

Commentng on WSJ article: IBM’s Retreat From Watson Highlights Broader AI Struggles in Health

I was chatting with an old friend yesterday and he reminded me of a conversation we had nearly 50 years ago. I tried to explain to him what I did for living and he was trying to understand why getting computers to understand was more complicated than key word analysis. I explained about concepts underlying sentences and explained that sentences used words but that people really didn’t use words in their minds except to get to the underlying ideas and that computers were having a hard time with that.

Fifty years later, key words are still dominating the thoughts of people who try to get computers to deal with language. But, this time, the key word people have deceived the general public by making claims that this is thinking, that AI is here, and that, by the way we should be very afraid, or very excited, I forget which.

We were making some good progress on getting computers to understand language but, in 1984, AI winter started. AI winter was a result of too many promises about things AI could do that it really could not do. (This was about promoting expert systems. Where are they now?). Funding dried up and real work on natural language processing died too.

But still people promote key words because Google and others use it to do "search". Search is all well and good when we are counting words, which is what data analytics and machine learning are really all about. Of course, once you count words you can do all kinds of correlations and users can learn about what words often connect to each other and make use of that information. But, users have learned to accommodate to Google not the other way around. We know what kinds of things we can type into Google and what we can’t and we keep our searches to things that Google is likely to help with. We know we are looking for texts and not answers to start a conversation with an entity that knows what we really need to talk about. People learn from conversation and Google can’t have one. It can pretend to have one using Siri but really those conversations tend to get tiresome when you are past asking about where to eat.

But, I am not worried about Google. It works well enough for our needs.

What I am concerned about are the exaggerated claims being made by IBM about their Watson program. Recently they ran an ad featuring Bob Dylan which made laugh, or would have, if had made not me so angry. I will say it clearly: Watson is a fraud. I am not saying that it can’t crunch words, and there may well be value in that to some people. But the ads are fraudulent. ... ' 

Why AI Can't Write this Article

We jousted with Roger Schank at the time of the first AI eruption, very well known at that time, and I continue to track his work.  Recognizing and understanding stories are a key part of our intelligence. See the tag below.     In the HBR on the state of AI today.  Thoughtful piece.

Why AI Can't Write this Article (Yet),  by Walter Frick

Roger Schank, a reearcher and former professor, once proposed a novel goal for artificial intelligence: A computer should be able to watch West Side Story and recognize the plot of Romeo and Juliet. Schank and his students believed that stories are central to intelligence, reasoning, and meaning. By Schank’s measure, today’s AI isn’t intelligent at all. ... "

Revealing the Limits of AI

So what can AI really do today?  Here a list of questions which aim to indicate the current limitations. Includes inputs by Roger Schank,  AI researcher we have followed for some time. Worth understanding if you are interested in implementing something.  Does not mean we can never do these, but that they are still hard to implement.   In CDN: 

Questions that Reveal the Current Limits of AI

So What is AI and when Should we invoke it?

Roger Schank, long time AI guru, who we talked to when building our own 'intelligent' systems. talks about what AI may really mean.  This sounds like conversations we also had back in the late 80s.

What Family Feud can teach us about AI and human intelligence
by Roger Schank  Founder and CEO at Socratic Arts  

Last week I was in Bogota, Colombia, interviewing experts in the food industry in order to gather video stories for use in a program to be used by that industry. At least 2 of the interviewees mentioned that they were using AI. They didn’t know anything about me so they didn’t mention AI for that reason. They just were saying that they were using AI in their food companies. This is so weird I had no idea what it could mean. What could they know about AI? AI has become the kind of thing that people (and especially the media) mention at the drop of a hat these days. But, they deeply fail to know what AI really is or at least should be.

Also last week, Stephen Hawking yet again made a pronouncement about AI, making clear he has no idea what AI is either.

So, I have come to the conclusion that AI is a word that many people and businesses say a lot while very few people who say it have a clue as to what it means. 

With that thought on my mind, and being someone who has thought about AI, and human intelligence, for about 50 years, I want to make some remarks here about human intelligence based on some rather mundane observations.   ... " 

Walmart Develops a Drone

Like this application, we examined a number for warehouse applications.  Simple, cheap, readily manipulable sensors that move to check inventory.  We did not considered flyable ones at the time. See also previous posts about drones on a gimbal and inside a cage to facilitate indoor use.

In the Business Insider
" ... Walmart is getting into the drone game.
Walmart's VP of Emerging Sciences Shekar Natarajan demoed the retailer's new technology to reporters from a Bentonville, Arkansas, distribution center on Thursday, on the eve of its annual shareholders meeting.

The drone technology will be replacing the jobs of inventory quality assurance employees, cutting inventory checks across massive distribution centers (the one in Bentonville is 1.2 million square feet) from one month down to a single day. ... "  

Watson Delivers Cognitive Artificial Intelligence Ads

A new automation play in the works with a number of participants.   Note also the natural language and voice interaction components.  New channels of automated consumer interaction.  Bots are not mentioned, but this provides an opening for more complete and compelling conversations.  This could change how advertising works.

Weather Company Incorporates IBM's Watson Into New Ad Product
Bets Artificial Intelligence Will Change Advertising ... By Jeanine Poggi.

The Weather Company is placing a bet on artificial intelligence. In its first major announcement since being acquired by IBM in January, Weather Company is introducing Watson Ads, which will allow consumers to ask questions via voice and text to receive information on products or brands. ... 

While there's no dearth of data available for marketers to make informed decisions about their customers and provide more relevant messaging and experiences, Watson's ability to understand natural language, reason and learn over time may allow for greater understanding of how consumers interact with brands and their perception of products.

Unilever will be one of the first advertisers to utilize Watson Ads for its Hellmanns and Country Crock brands. With Watson, consumers can ask their phone or computer for recipe ideas based on specific ingredients. .... " 

Also reported on in the WSJ.

Schank's XTOL Experiential Learning

A mention of Roger Schank, AI pioneer, founder of the 'AI Boom' company Cognitive Systems, who I recall was critical of our AI work in the 80s.  His work in AI scripting was fundamental. He later did research for Andersen Consulting. Recently became a co founder of XTOL.  " ... Our proven approach provides you with critical technology and business skills. You’ll gain authentic experience at a realistic pace conducive to learning at an affordable price. The Professional Development Center at the University of Texas at Austin has partnered with Experiential Teaching Online (XTOL) — to offer four skills-based technology career programs. In response to the growing demand for highly skilled technical employees in Texas and beyond, these certificate programs offer a real-world, collaboration-driven, skills-based learning experience focused on software technology and data analytics. .. "  

He writes about his latest work in AI, which takes scripts on to expert Storytelling:  " ... I spent 25 years working in Artificial Intelligence. My new goal is not to build intelligent machines, but rather to build an intelligently organized and indexed knowledge base that is easily accessible and gets smarter over time. The current manifestation of this goal is called EXTRA (Experts Telling Relevant Advice). EXTRA is a knowledge management system that stores and retrieves digitally recorded stories. EXTRA has one intention -- and that is to get a story to a user that will help him or her make a decision just at the time that they are about to make a decision. We use storytelling as the vehicle to impart knowledge. You can read more about EXTRA and see a demo here.   ... " 

Further:  Roger Schank's home page.  Recent interview: The Art of Learning.

A thread ongoing in Linkedin, which talks about this connected to Knowledge Graphs, AI and cognitive systems.