Paper shuffling could be a thing of the past

Press, 11 February 1986, Page 28

Paper shuffling could be a thing of the past

The application of artificial intelligence techniques to the commercial world has the potential to eliminate the whole of middle management, according to a leading research worker in computing, now visiting Christchurch. Dr lan Witten, from the University of Calgary, said that any job that involves paper shuffling could eventually be done by a computer system using artificial intelligence principles. Such systems will be able to gather and filter information in a superior manner to present day computer systems, leaving top management and professional workers as decision makers.

Two groups of professionals expected to be greatly affected by the new “expert systems” are doctors and lawyers. People will be able to consult the computer about their medical or legal problems and may not find it necessary to consult a human expert. Dr John Cleary, a colleague of Dr Witten’s, sees a close parallel between the way a computer is programmed and the way a lawyer works. “Law is an area that is one of the most likely to benefit from the techniques,” he said.

Conveyancing, for example, will eventually be done by a computer system. But according to Dr Witten, the computer might warn you in some circumstances that you need to consult a lawyer. "There are some hard problems for a computer system,” Dr Witten explained. An example from law is where time is involved in a legal decision, such as when a circumstance occurred before a particular Act came into force.

Dr Witten and Dr Cleary also admitted that the term “artificial intelligence” might conjure up a more exciting impression in the public’s mind that it really deserves. “A lot of what is being done in artificial intelligence is not radically different than traditional computer methods,” said Dr Cleary. “It’s got commercial,” said Dr Witten. “Video games have a lot more to do with whni is artificial intelligence.” Dr Witten has just completed a spell as the head of computer science at the University of Calgary and is visiting the University of Canterbury as an Erskin Fellow for four months.

This is his second visit to the University of Can-

terbury and both times he has taken the opportunity to work with Dr John Andreae, of the university’s department of electrical and electronic engineering, who does research into learning systems.

Dr Cleary is a graduate of the University of Canterbury who taught at Victoria University before going to Calgary in 1982.

. The researchers will be attending a conference in Christchurch next week organised by Dr Andreae, which is to become the first of a series of international conferences on future advances in computing. It will take the form of a workshop to disucss alternative technologies for artificial intelligence. About thirty research workers will attend the conference.

On Friday, February 21, a one-day symposium will end the conference. Six researchers from Calgary and a colleague who works for Boeing will discuss the state of the art in computing systems, covering such topics as new generations of computing, human computer interation and knowledge-based systems. The symposium is open to the public for a fee of $3O.

Dr Brian Wyvill, one of the visiting computer scientists from Canada, is mainly interested In producing realistic images: from three-di-mensional computer models.

The photograph (right) taken from a slide series to be shown at next week’s symposium is one frame of a sequence showing the word “Soft” sliding down stairs. The sequence was generated in colour on a computer graphics workstation by Dr Wyvill and his team.

The researchers are looking at ways of letting a user define so-called “soft objects.” Dr Wyvill says';- that adequately modelling soft objects is a major problem in computer graphics, Liquids and cloth are two classes of objects that require such techniques. Dr Wyvill, whose personal ambition is to model a waving flag on a computer graphics system, has established the University of Calgary as one of the leading American institutions in interactive computer graphics and animation.