Uniscript: a Model for Persistent and Incremental Knowledge Storage

Uniscript: a Model for Persistent and Incremental Knowledge Storage Adorjan Kiss, Joel Quinqueton LIRMM, Montpellier, France

Objective (a world to dream of) • The knowledge of a person gathered and instantly accessible anytime by anyone. • Each piece of knowledge should be “true”. Its truth should be “guaranteed” by the author. • Each piece of knowledge should be unique. • Access to a piece of knowledge should be possible through any related piece of knowledge. Uniscript

Personal Knowledge Representation • Knowledge representation in computers: • To be used in foreseen scenarios • Knowledge elements considered universally accepted (“information”). • The objective: • De-couple knowledge from expected usage. • A piece of knowledge can be recorded not only when its utility is certain. People may feel a piece of knowledge is important, without being able to explain why. • Record permanently. • Represent only knowledge that you are certain of. That is, you believe to have the least chances to become “invalidated” by time. Uniscript

What is “everlasting” knowledge? • A seemingly obvious answer: • Perfect classifications • The unquestionable rules of our physical world. • The alternative answer: • Objects, events, facts that had a real existence. • That is, “situated” knowledge. • “Les theories passent, les grenouilles restent” (Theories pass, the frogs remain) - Jean Rostand • Ok, but these individual pieces of knowledge (the frogs) are countless. Can’t hope to represent everything. Which ones to choose? • Everything important for a person: see Memex. Uniscript

Situated knowledge pieces • Observer: • the person who contemplates the world • His attention is attracted by certain “phenomena” that he can delimit, identify an trace through a period of time. • Stance: • A delimitation (cut-out) from the world (space-time continuum) that presented an importance for the observer. • Its borders – in space, and time – are subjective • They can be fuzzy • The observer is not constrained to agree with anyone else about where he draws the borders. • It presents some regularities – the features allowing the observer to trace it – (hence the name “stance”) Uniscript

Stancification • What to stancify? • Final objective: progressively learn to store everything a human mind can represent and explicit. • How to select what to stancify next? • Lasting importance. A stance should be found interesting beyond a foreseen usage scenario. • Guidance by strength of belief. No surprise is expected that could contradict the reality of a stance. • Principle of uniqueness. Before recording a stance, make sure it is not already there. Uniscript

Traditional Knowledge Storage • Writing it in a language or communicative medium • Decompose into identifiable units • Serialize ideas terms Uniscript

Stance base Stance network • Identify stances • Identify relations between stances • Build a stance network • Define the semantics of links Uniscript

“Everything is a stance” • Individual objects • Parts of objects that can be delimited • States of objects • Individual events • Groups of stances (of the above) that share some regularities • The 4d interval corresponding to a stance is not necessarily contiguous: neither in time nor in space. Uniscript

space t0 t1 time Stance as a 4D interval • Compressed to 2D… • t0the beginning of the stance: when the observer considers it assumes its identity • t1 the end of the stance: the moment when the observer considers it looses its identity. • the shape: the stance could have moved and changed size, form, etc during its life • Note: a stance is not necessarily contiguous in space or time Example: the apple tree near my window Uniscript

space t0 t' t'' t1 time Related stance examples • State of a stance Example: my apple tree in blossom during last summer Uniscript

space t0 t1 time Related stance examples • Member (part) of a stance Example: the root of my apple tree Uniscript

Stances are finite • Stances have a finite lifetime • Once a stance is “dead” (ended), it will never exist once again: death is a change in identity. • End of a stance: transformation into other stance(s) – identifiable by different criteria – or into something that cannot be delimited. • If a transformation of a stance is “reversible”, it can be seen as states (sub-stances) of a more generic stance. Uniscript

Individuals, groups and classes • Groups as stances: • Finite groups are stances (whether they are countable, or not). • Classes as stances: • An observer can consider a class as a stance: • A class must be finite (not abstract): • The group of all individuals (instances) that the observer has found to belong to that class through his lifetime. • Classes cannot pre-exist before their instances. • Difference between artifacts and natural classes. • There is NO DIFFERENCE between individuals, groups and classes. Uniscript

Uniscript: a language for representing (storing) stances • Stances can be stored in a digital (i.e. numeric) memory: • Each stance is permanently associated to a memory location (number). • Stored stances can be connected through oriented links: • Containment: complete space-time inclusion • Transformation: causality – temporal precedence • Revision: exceptional modification in the identity of stances. Uniscript

Representing a simple situation Today, Today, I went swimming after work I went swimming after work [2004-10-05] (#150) Me (#1) Working (# 21) Swimming (# 32) (# 152) (# 151) Uniscript

Incrementally augmenting the knowledge Today, I went swimming after work I was driving from work to swimming [2004-10-05] (#150) Me (#1) Working (# 21) Swimming (# 32) (# 152) (# 151) Driving (# 38) (#153) Uniscript

Ubook: an implementation of a Uniscript knowledge base as personal memory aid • Structures for representing the knowledge graph • Methods for accessing knowledge pieces: • Storing and connecting stances • Browsing the network. • Computer-interpretable data (resource) layer for • Rendering stances – to help reconstitute the meaning of stances • Direct access to stances through indexed resources Uniscript

Resources • Data packages that can be interpreted (rendered) by a computer: • Text, image, video, sound, etc. • DAC output (screen, speakers, printer, etc) • “Standard” rendering (decompression and decoding) methods: • Unicode (text), jpeg, wav, mp3, etc. Uniscript

Rendering indexes Stance base Resource base Retrieval indexes Stance-resource association Uniscript

Text rendering • Important, but not fundamental • Stances are not equivalent with words (terms) of natural language • Allows indexation • Direct access to key stances • Quick rendering • Offers the possibility of immediate identification • Resource – stance associations are not definitive Uniscript

Ubook: system architecture • Implemented as a middle-layer • Core applications: • Rendering and browsing interface • Visual knowledge editing interface • Add-on applications: • Viewing and composing complex and/or recurring structures (stance configurations) • Engines generating overviews, transformations and batch processing • Reasoning applications to ease ensuring knowledge consistency, etc. Uniscript

An implementation on PDA • The rendering and browsing interface (Finder): • Text rendering of stances: • The standard format: • Stance number (ex. #127) • List of text resources • Eventually: recursive rendering of one or more levels of neighbors, e.g. Containers. • Example: • [#128: my nose –[#22: nose] –[#10: me]] Uniscript

Connection editor • Visual interface for creating stances and connections • The workspace: setting up a stage • Set up actors: stances that are involved (ensure we know what are we are talking about) • Create new stances (after checking that they do not exist) • Associate stances with resources • Connect actors through the 3 possible link types. Uniscript

Future Work • Inter-platform synchronization • Remote access to non-essential resources (URI) • Description language, frames, compressing recurring configurations Uniscript

From personal knowledge to the dream world (after Memex) • People will start storing their personal knowledge • Natural selection: • Some of them will store too greedily • will eventually loose control over their knowledge base (difficulties to retrieve and interpret their knowledge, redundancy will grow out of manageable limits). • Hopefully, some will find clever ways, configurations to store specific situations • These ways of representations (formulations or expressions) will be shared among people, and spread until some of them will eventually gain general acceptance. • Emergence of a language • when there will be a way of expression for most current situations from everyday life. Uniscript

Extra slidesEvents • Events have a duration in time – they can be stancified. • Several objects can take part in events, having different roles. How to connect them to event stance? • 3 types of events: • No preexisting stance • 1 preexisting stance • 2 preexisting stances Uniscript

R1 E R2 space R1 E R2 time t1 t2 Events with no preexisting stance identified • Origins (causes) of the event could not (were not interesting to) be identified One or more stances can emerge as consequences of the event. Uniscript

R1 R1 space P1 P1 P1 E R2 R2 R1 E E P1 E R2 time t1 t2 Events with 1 preexisting stance identified • a) The event makes the stance lose its identity (disappearance) Uniscript

P1 R1 space E R2 P1 R1 P1 E R2 time t1 t2 Events with 1 preexisting stance identified • b) The event does not affect the stance’s identity (state) Uniscript

P1 R1 space E R2 P2 R1 P1 E P2 R2 time t1 t2 Events with 2 preexisting stances identified • a) Both stances lose their identities (fusion) Uniscript

P1 space R1 E P2 P1 R2 R1 P1 E P2 R2 time t1 t2 Events with 2 preexisting stances identified • b) One of the stances loses its identity (absorption) Uniscript

P1 P2 space R1 E P1 R2 R1 P1 E P2 R2 P2 time t1 t2 Events with 2 preexisting stances identified • c) Both stances keep their identity (interaction) Uniscript

Uniscript: a Model for Persistent and Incremental Knowledge Storage