Cyc: toward programs with common sense
Communications of the ACMPublished 1 August 1990Open access
Douglas B. Lenat, R. Guha, Karen Pittman, Dexter Pratt, Mary Shepherd
Citations507
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score1.15
SNIP3.34
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TL;DR
The need for a massive knowledge base spanning human consensus knowledge is examined and the authos' efforts over the past five years to begin its construction are reviewed.
Abstract
Cyc is a bold attempt to assemble a massive knowledge base (on the order of 10 8 axioms) spanning human consensus knowledge. This article examines the need for such an undertaking and reviews the authos' efforts over the past five years to begin its construction. The methodology and history of the project are briefly discussed, followed by a more developed treatment of the current state of the representation language used (epistemological level), techniques for efficient inferencing and default reasoning (heuristic level), and the content and organization of the knowledge base.
Keywords
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