John William Charnley

A Global Workspace Framework for Combining Reasoning Systems

Stand-alone Artificial Intelligence systems for performing specific types of reasoning - such as automated theorem proving and symbolic manipulation in computer algebra systems - are numerous, highly capable and constantly improving. Moreover, systems which combine various forms of reasoning have repeatedly been shown to be more effective than stand-alone systems. For example, the ICARUS system for reformulating constraint satisfaction problems [1] and the HOMER system for conjecture making in number theory [2]. However, in general, such combinations have been ad-hoc in nature and designedwith a specific task in mind. With little general design consideration or a suitable framework for combining reasoning, in general every new combination has to be built from scratch and the resulting system is often inflexible and difficult to manage. We believe it is imperative that generic frameworks are developed if the field of combining reasoning systems is to progress. Such generic frameworkswould provide standardised rule sets and toolkits to simplify the development of combined systems.