Ten applications are presented in this section in fairly specific,
concrete form; i.e., a thumbnail ``scenario of use.'' In later
sections, when we treat each application in turn, we will suggest
additional tasks in that same category, and explain how and why Cyc
could be used.
- (1) Advice services
- Over a network (e.g., CompuServe), offer a service
that helps people select which type of new car to buy.
- (2) Directed marketing
- Use a person's buying history
to infer their hobbies, interests, occupation, physical needs and
preferences, etc. From that model, decide which products to try to sell
them, and what ``argument'' to use to convince them they should buy the
product.
- Point-of-sale marketing. When someone enters a store, they `swipe'
their ID card across a reader, and receive some custom-printed coupons
(with brief, custom-tailored ``arguments.'')
- Direct mail marketing. As above, but can be longer, glossier, and
more detailed, and can include ``products'' not sold in stores (e.g.,
900-... numbers.)
- (3) Online brokering of goods/services
- Using a common vocabulary
and shared fundamental knowledge about transactions, enable a large set
of buyers/sellers to find each other and negotiate deals - online and
(semi-)automatically.
- (4) Data base cleaning
- Relate a data base's fields and keys to
Cyc predicates and terms, and use Cyc's common sense constraints to
detect possible errors and inconsistencies in that data base.
- (5) Data base integration
- Use that same sort of ``articulation'' approach
to have several heterogeneous data bases all relate their contents to
one central knowledge base. Use this to (1) detect and resolve
contradictions among data bases, and (2) handle queries that
require accessing - and integrating the results from - multiple
DB's.
- (6) Corporate knowledge assets management
-
Represent a company's know-how, policies, important documents, programs,
and data bases - all in a form that a program can effectively reason
with. Use as an online policy manual, or as a sort of ``smart Yellow
Pages'' for employees.
- (7) Smart spreadsheets
- Explain the ``meaning'' of the rows and columns,
by tying them to a large corpus of general knowledge about occupations,
human capabilities, goals, household objects, etc. Highlight
abnormal (though not illegal) values, and suggest places where there
seems to be a missing equation or constraint.
- (8) Smarter interfaces
- Use an online model of the ``meaning''
of what the application program is doing, what the user's goals are,
what constraints they're under (e.g., deadlines), etc., to adjust the
interface. E.g., reorder questions on a `form'; rearrange windows;
highlight or cross out various parts; guess at values to fill in certain
`blanks;' and so on.
- (9) Machine translation of technical documents
-
Provide a set of flexible templates into which 95%of some class of
technical documents (e.g., installation instructions for a laser
printer) can be captured. Then, using currently-available natural
language software,
process such documents, converting them into a set of filled template
instances. Conversely, the `first writing' of a manual could itself be
done by filling out such templates. Translations into different
languages could then be produced by composing the translations of each
template, and each (disambiguated) term used. Difficult portions get
flagged for checking by hand.
- (10) Enriched `Artificial Reality' (AR)
- Simulated `worlds' in
which physical objects behave ``realistically,'' and machine-run
personae behave ``intelligently'' - particularly when one interacts with those
objects and personae in ways that were not specifically preconceived. In addition,
complex, changing images must somehow be transmitted in real time, among
a large set of interacting human users, at compression ratios exceeding
one million to one.
In the next ten sections, we focus on each of the applications listed
above. We go into more detail of what the application would be, why and
how Cyc would be useful, list some alternative specific usage scenarios,
and try to characterize what the ``general opportunity'' really is.