AI in Operating Systems
Add a bit of AI to your OS
Dateline: 03/09/99
The next generation of software applications will need skills to interact more efficiently with their users. There have been significant advances in this field already, but the integration of AI technologies into new operating systems is a key to full commercial success and customer satisfaction. Game developers were the first to realize the full potential of applied AI: now other, more "serious" applications are waiting to become a little bit "smarter".
The key players at this field certainly didn't forget to use Artificial Intelligence in their products. Just take a look at the pages describing ongoing research efforts at Microsoft, and you'll see that a team from Redmond has some pretty impressive stuff there. I would like to point your attention to the branch of AI known as probabilistic reasoning and Bayesian networks that has shown a great potential for practical applications.
Expert system are still the most common application of AI in the real world, due to their ability to bring expert's knowledge and decision making qualities to the general user. Unfortunately, all rule-based approaches to expert systems don't deal effectively with uncertainty. They expect hard, "yes-or-no" facts, while in the real world nothing is so clear. That's where Bayesian networks (named after 18th century British minister, Thomas Bayes) fit in perfectly. In short, Bayes' rule says that you can use known information to generate the probabilities of various possible causes that produced the observed behaviour (see the links below for the more detailed explanation of Bayes' Rule).
Microsoft's Decision Theory & Adaptive Systems Group considered alternative user-interface metaphors for acquiring information from users and for sharing the results of Bayesian inference with users during the course of their Lumiere project. This technology went live in Office '97 through the Office Assistant that monitors user behaviors and assists users. It is a great step beyond traditional windowing and dialog boxes, followed by other projects from the UI Group, like Microsoft Agent and other conversational interfaces.
However, there is another interesting project that you could join. The directive of the AIOS Project is to develop a new computer operating system based on artificial intelligence, either in stand-alone form or on top of an existing OS. The project is in open development, which means that anyone who's willing can help in development. AIOS will be based on natural-language processing and should include rudimentary learning and problem-solving abilities.
The list of all the people involved in this project looks quite impressive. AIOS is still in the early stages of development, and there are no demos or pre-release versions. If you like this kind of "Linux-like" philosophy (I certainly do), and have experience in AI, OS design, assembler programming, Lisp, C++, or anything else that could help, send an email with your name, email address and area of expertise to join the project. To join the mailing list, send an email message with the words "subscribe aios-discuss" to [email protected].
Similar site(s) of interest:
- AFIT
Bayesian networks tutorial from the Air Force Institute of Technology AI Lab.
- Lumiere
Lumiere Project: Bayesian Reasoning for Automated Assistance, from the Decision Theory & Adaptive Systems Group at Microsoft.
- Vision
Vision Technology Group at Microsoft: Vision Software Development Kit, Image-Based Modelling and Rendering, Intelligent Video Analysis, Vision-Based User Interfaces and the the EasyLiving project.
- User Interfaces
Development of social user interfaces based on life-like computer characters which can interact and build a rapport with the user, including the famous Persona project.
- DTAS
The Decision Theory & Adaptive Systems Group at Microsoft is focused on extending the flexibility and responsiveness of operating systems, databases, information systems, and user interfaces.
- NLP
The goal of the NLP group is to design and build a computer system that will analyze, understand, and generate natural languages.
- AIOS
The home page for the AIOS project: developing a new computer operating system based on artificial intelligence.
- Linux
If you are interested in Linux, everything you need can be found right here.
- BeOS
Home page for a new multimedia operating system.
- The Software Developer's Locus
A useful resource site/online magazine for programmers of all persuasions, discussing some AI techniques.