New Paradigms For Using Computers
Thursday, July 27, 1995
WORKSHOP PANELISTS
MIKE DIXON is a researcher at Xerox PARC, where he works on network places for remote collaboration, smart buildings, real-time control of complex electromechanical systems, programming language theory, ...that sort of thing. For most of the '80s, he was a graduate student at Stanford, and before that he hailed from Ottawa, Canada.
FRED LAKIN currently runs the Performing Graphics Company in Palo Alto, which does live computer graphic recording for meetings. Previously, Lakin was a researcher at Stanford's Center for Design Research, where he created a system for the generation and conservation of design knowledge. His other projects include working on a visual "cognitive prothesis" at the Rehabilitation R&D Center at the Palo Alto Stanford's AI Lab.
HENRY LIEBERMAN has been a research scientist at the MIT Media Laboratory since 1987. His interests intersect computer graphics, human interface and artificial intelligence. He has done pioneering research in Programming by Example, a method for teaching a machine new behavior by recording user interface actions and generalizing concrete visual examples. He is currently exploring learning agents that make use of video and graphical annotation, and agents that learn from examples of browsing techniques such as transparency to visualize large information spaces, and visualizing software through a reversible, animated debugger. He worked with Carl Hewitt (at the MIT Media Lab) where he was instrumental in developing the actor paradigm and invented the first algorithm for real-time garbage collection. At the MIT AI Lab he worked with Seymour Papert and Hal Albeson on the Logo language and computer systems for education.
MARVIN MINSKY is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is one of the founders of the field of artificial intelligence. Professor Minsky has worked since the early 1950's on applying the descriptive mechanisms offered by computation to characterizing human psychological processes and on endowing machines with the ability to act intelligently and adapt effectively. He and John McCarthy co-founded the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1961 and were its director and co-director through 1971. Minsky is the author of many books and papers, and has received many awards and honors. Minsky's research has led to both theoretical and practical advances in artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, neural networks and the theory of Turning Machines and recursive functions. He has made major contributions to the scientific foundations of symbolic description, knowledge representation, computational semantics and linguistics, machine perception, symbolic connectionist learning, mechanical robotics and industrial automation. Minsky has also been one of the leaders of intelligence-based mechanical robotics. He was closely involved with the development of the computer language LISP and created the first LOGO "turtle."
TED SELKER is Manager of IBM's Almaden Research Center, San Jose, Calif. His most recent work focuses on new paradigms for using computers: 1) The COACH research system demonstrates the use of adaptive user models in help/tutoring environments.
2) The VREP project is developing "linguistics" for the use of graphic techniques in computer interfaces.
(3 The Physical Interface project includes efforts such as Selker's design of IBM's Personal Presentation Computer notebook 755CV, and co-invention of IBM's Trackpoint II and TrackPoint III, an integrated cursor control and pointing device with performance advantage derived from a special behavioral motor match algorithm. Previously, Dr. Selker has conducted research at Xerox PARC, Atari and Stanford University's Robotics Laboratory.
MARTY TENENBAUM received his BS and MS in EE from MIT, and his Ph.D. in EE and computer science from Stanford University. From 1972 to 1980, he led the SRI artificial intelligence center's machine vision research program. In 1980, he co-founded and directed the Fairchild Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence Research (FLAIR) until 1986. In 1990, Dr. Tenenbaum founded Enterprise Integration specializing in information technology for electronic commerce, collaborative engineering and agile manufacturing. Dr. Tenenbaum is a Fellow and former board of AAAI. He has served on the USAF Scientific Advisory Board and numerous other government and professional committees. He currently serves on the editorial boards of four technical journals.
TERRY WINOGRAD is a professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. His early research on natural language understanding by computers was a milestone in artificial intelligence, and he has written two books and numerous articles on that topic. His book, "Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design" (Addison-Wesley, 1987, co-authored with Fernando Flores), takes a critical look at work in artificial intelligence and suggests new directions for the design of computer systems and their integration into human activity. His most recent book, co-edited with Paul Adler, is "Usability: Turning Technologies into Tools" (Oxford, 1992). Winograd is a founder of Action Technologies, a developer of Workflow Responsibility, of which he is a founding member and past president. He is on the National Advisory Board for the Association for Software Design and the Internet Advisory board for America Online. He directs the project on People, Computers and Design at Stanford, where he is also developing a program on human-computer interaction design.
