1. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions The START Information Access System Boris Katz http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/infolab/

2. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions Finding information on line Two Approaches: 1. Keyword search (search engines, e.g., AltaVista) 2. Natural language processing The Problem:

3. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions What’s Wrong with Keyword Search?

4. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions What’s Right About Natural Language Processing?

5. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions What’s Wrong with Natural Language Processing (today)? 1. Too hard Full-text NL understanding still beyond reach Intersentential reference Paraphrasing Summarization Common sense implication 2. Too slow 3. Not all information is language Most Web resources are not textual Maps and Images Sound and Video Multimedia Web resources are distributed across numerous non-traditional databases

6. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions START (SynTactic Analysis using Reversible Transformations) provides multimedia information access using natural language. Natural language Natural language is human language. You don’t have to learn a special language to use START. Ask your questions in English; enter information using English. Multimedia access using natural language annotations START lets you use English to access any kind of information: text, pictures, movies, and more. “Just the right information” START gives you the answer you want without including a thousand others. Virtual collaboration START retrieves information from its own knowledge base and from databases all over the Web. What is START?

7. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions Natural language is human language. You don’t have to learn a special language to use START. Ask your questions in English; enter information using English Natural Language

8. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions START lets you use English to access any kind of information: text, pictures, movies, and more. Multimedia Access Using Natural Language Annotations

9. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions START gives you the answer you want without including a thousand other answers. Just the Right Information

10. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions START retrieves information from its own knowledge base and from databases all over the Web. Virtual Collaboration

11. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions Bridge the gap between our ability to analyze natural language sentences and other information and our desire to access the huge amount of data now available on the Web. Annotations are collections of natural language sentences and phrases that describe the content of various information segments. START analyzes these annotations creates the necessary representational structures produces special pointers to the information segments summarized by the annotations. Natural Language Annotations

12. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions START Server START Server START Server Document Natural Language Annotations Annotation Information Provider Information Seeker (negotiation) (submitted) (retrieved) Xxx xx xxxx xx xx xxxxx x xxx Xxx xx xx xxx “Neptune was discovered using mathematics.” + Document Xxx xx xxxx xx xx xxxxx x xxx Xxx xx xx xxx Question “How was Neptune discovered?” START Server

13. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions HPKB POTUS Fortune500 Uniform Access START NL questions Multimedia responses Omnibase Queries Data Local knowledge base of ternary expressions Core vocabulary Uniform interface to multiple database formats (Web, text, etc.) Extended lexicon U.S. Census IMDb

14. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions How START Works Web browser START Parser Matcher English Database of T-exps T-exps from KB Generator HTML English Annotations Scripts Native knowledge Omnibase (external knowledge) Scripts WWW Potus IMDb World Factbook U.S. Census Input T-exps

15. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory — Research Directions