SCXT 350

Take-home final exam

Fall 2000

General notes:

1, Responses should be typed (word processor) except where a diagram is necessary.

2. Email submissions can not be accepted.

3. You are welcome to consult published works (be sure to cite them), but you are explicitly prohibited from consulting with fellow students (even to clarify the meaning of a problem). This must be completely and entirely your own work. Do please feel free to ask me questions, of course.

4. Problems should (once again) be typewritten (word processor), and should be submitted in order. It is always a good idea to retain a copy for yourself.

.5. This exam will be turned in at 10:00 AM Friday, Dec. 15. I will be in our classroom from 9:30 AM to 10:15 AM to collect exams.

There have been several threads to our discussions this term. In this exam, we visit them one more time. Each of the following will have roughly equal weight, and I would expect roughly two pages (more than one, no more than three) for each.

1. Physical Symbol System Hypothesis: Intelligent action is computable.

Consider the Descartes, Turing, Newell and Simon, and Searle papers in the coursepack to be a time-constrained discussion starting with Descartes and continuing through Searle. In the form of an introduction to the coursepack, outline (in essay form, of course) the main issues raised in this conversation. Be sure to address in your introduction (in addition to other issues you may wish to discuss) the notion that intelligent action is computable. In a final paragraph (that might lead to the inclusion of another paper in the coursepack), address briefly the distinction between symbolic and connectionist AI. Important Note: Students in CSci 431 who have started work on problem 6 (b) should pick another option for problem 6.

2. Computation.

Beginning with the simple model of a computer we discussed at the very start of the class, describe the various models of computation we have discussed this term. Your discussion should include this first model, programming in LISP, finite state automata, Turing machines, and the physical symbol system. In your discussion of the physical symbol system, be sure to incorporate a discussion of search and knowledge representation as we have discussed it in class.

3. Marr

Marr gives us a way to organize our thoughts on complex phenomena. Give a description of Marr's three levels as you would describe them for an intelligent friend. In your discussion, consider specifically either problem-solving or natural language understanding (please be sure to re-read Marr's paper in either case), and incorporate examples from our discussion in the course on knowledge representation, search, grammars, and expert systems.

4. Other issues. Do one of the following (one of which would involve a bit of research).

a. Consider the paper on expertise and also our work with expert systems. Give descriptions of both, and then discuss how they are related and how they fail to relate.

b. Consider either the lecture on memory (Professor Mark Reinitz) or the lecture on the development of the facility in children for understanding and producing natural language (Professor Cathy Hale). Review (in written form) the basic parts of the lecture (and associated article), and explore how these have been modeled in artificial intelligence. Be sure to cite any references you use.

Please Note: Although this is given as a draft, I do not intend to make any major changes to it. Any changes (unless I find that I've really done something wrong) will be on the order of clarifications. No changes are anticipated after today.