Artificial intelligence, language, and the study of knowledge

This paper studies the relationship of Artificial Intelligence to the study of language and the representation of the underlying knowledge which supports the comprehension process. It develops the view that intelligence is based on the ability to use large amounts of diverse kinds of knowledge in procedural ways, rather than on the possession of a few general and uniform principles. The paper also provides a unifying thread to a variety of recent approaches to natural language comprehension. We conclude with a brief discussion of how Artificial Intelligence may have a radical impact on education if the principles which it utilizes to explore the representation and use of knowledge are made available to the student to use in his own learning experiences. This paper is a revised version of an earlier document written with Marvin Minsky. Many of the ideas in this paper owe much to Minsky's thoughtful critique; the authors, however, take responsibility fo the organization and wording of this document.