Cyc

artificial intelligence A large knowledge-based system.

Cyc is a very large, multi-contextual knowledge base and

inference engine, the development of which started at the

Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC)

in Austin, Texas during the early 1980s.

Over the past eleven years the members of the Cyc team, lead

by Doug Lenat, have added to the knowledge base a huge

amount of fundamental human knowledge: facts, rules of

thumb, and heuristics for reasoning about the objects and

events of modern everyday life.

Cyc is an attempt to do symbolic AI on a massive scale. It

is not based on numerical methods such as statistical

probabilities, nor is it based on neural networks or fuzzylogic. All of the knowledge in Cyc is represented

declaratively in the form of logical assertions. Cyc

presently contains approximately 400,000 significant

assertions, which include simple statements of fact, rules

about what conclusions to draw if certain statements of fact

are satisfied, and rules about how to reason with certain

types of facts and rules. The inference engine derives new

conclusions using deductive reasoning.

To date, Cyc has made possible ground-breaking pilot

applications in the areas of heterogeneous database browsing

and integration, captioned image retrieval, and naturallanguage processing.

In January of 1995, a new independent company named Cycorp was

created to continue the Cyc project. Cycorp is still in

Austin, Texas. The president of Cycorp is Doug Lenat.

The development of Cyc has been supported by several

organisations, including Apple, Bellcore, DEC, DoD,

Interval, Kodak, and Microsoft.

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(1999-09-07)