V. Lifschitz, ed., formalizing common sense: papers by John McCarthy

A review is presented of Lifschitz's collection of seventeen papers written by McCarthy on the subject of common sense. The book opens with a fine overview of McCarthy's research in artificial intelligence (AI). Lifschitz offers an admirably succinct account of the development of McCarthy's ideas on common sense from the early days of AI to his current work. Lifschitz's introduction is especially useful in appreciating the dramatically original and permanently influential nature of McCarthy's work. While McCarthy's papers collected in this volume were written over the span of almost three decades, Lifschitz correctly observes that the underlying concern has always been the same: to understand and model the intellectual ability realized by human common sense

Urban Courier Delivery in a Smart City: The User Learning Process of Travel Costs Enhanced by Emerging Technologies

this paper surveys urban courier routing, pointing out the learning process of the generalized travel cost enhanced by using innovations related to the introduction of emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs, i.e., the internet of things, big data, block chain and artificial intelligence), considering a smart city. couriers, when planning in advance or choosing the routes in real time for delivering to citizens as well as to business users (including retailers), need to consider both the driving and walking routes (i.e., from the delivery bay to the customers) to optimize their activities. a two-layer literature optimization model is recalled, and the main scientific people-centered challenges that need to be addressed under the light of emerging ICTs are identified and explored, which are the learning process of routing attributes, as well as the opportunity to book on-street delivery bays in advance or in real time. then, after a literature review on modeling courier activities, a unitary formulation is presented that combines old and real-time network data. In addition, integration with new telematics solutions (i.e., delivery bay booking) is pointed out. finally, discussions on innovations and cost optimization are presented

The Faculty Notebook, September 2016

The Faculty Notebook is published periodically by the Office of the Provost at Gettysburg College to bring to the attention of the campus community accomplishments and activities of academic interest. Faculty are encouraged to submit materials for consideration for publication to the Associate Provost for Faculty Development. Copies of this publication are available at the Office of the Provost

What is Computational Intelligence and where is it going?

What is Computational Intelligence (CI) and what are its relations with Artificial Intelligence (AI)? A brief survey of the scope of CI journals and books with ``computational intelligence'' in their title shows that at present it is an umbrella for three core technologies (neural, fuzzy and evolutionary), their applications, and selected fashionable pattern recognition methods. At present CI has no comprehensive foundations and is more a bag of tricks than a solid branch of science. The change of focus from methods to challenging problems is advocated, with CI defined as a part of computer and engineering sciences devoted to solution of non-algoritmizable problems. In this view AI is a part of CI focused on problems related to higher cognitive functions, while the rest of the CI community works on problems related to perception and control, or lower cognitive functions. Grand challenges on both sides of this spectrum are addressed

Bounded Rationality and Heuristics in Humans and in Artificial Cognitive Systems

In this paper I will present an analysis of the impact that the notion of “bounded rationality”, introduced by Herbert Simon in his book “Administrative Behavior”, produced in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In particular, by focusing on the field of Automated Decision Making (ADM), I will show how the introduction of the cognitive dimension into the study of choice of a rational (natural) agent, indirectly determined - in the AI field - the development of a line of research aiming at the realisation of artificial systems whose decisions are based on the adoption of powerful shortcut strategies (known as heuristics) based on “satisficing” - i.e. non optimal - solutions to problem solving. I will show how the “heuristic approach” to problem solving allowed, in AI, to face problems of combinatorial complexity in real-life situations and still represents an important strategy for the design and implementation of intelligent systems

Telepresence and the Role of the Senses

The telepresence experience can be evoked in a number of ways. A well-known example is a player of videogames who reports about a telepresence experience, a subjective experience of being in one place or environment, even when physically situated in another place. In this paper we set the phenomenon of telepresence into a theoretical framework. As people react subjectively to stimuli from telepresence, empirical studies can give more evidence about the phenomenon. Thus, our contribution is to bridge the theoretical with the empirical. We discuss theories of perception with an emphasis on Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Gibson, the role of the senses and the Spinozian belief procedure. The aim is to contribute to our understanding of this phenomenon. A telepresence-study that included the affordance concept is used to empirically study how players report sense-reactions to virtual sightseeing in two cities. We investigate and explore the interplay of the philosophical and the empirical. The findings indicate that it is not only the visual sense that plays a role in this experience, but all senses