[Gbbopen-list] What's the position of "blackboard" in AI research?

[Dan Corkill]

> It seems that author has been working in this area for more than 20  
> years (1986-2008). 

Well, I'm certainly biased (if not seemingly quite old...!), but:

> So is this (blackboard related topics) is "outdate" or important-but- 
> most-people-dont-think-so theory?

As a Common Lisper you should be used to the "it's OK if everyone isn't 
using/talking about it" take on things.

Truth be told, most blackboard-system applications came to a blackboard 
approach (if they survived at all) only as a last resort.  "We didn't think 
we needed/had time to use it."  This has held true for all those years and, 
unfortunately, continues today.  There are also a number of "modern" 
tools/mechanisms that provide some of what a serious blackboard-system 
approach provides.  (For example, see space-based architectures, the 
repository software pattern, etc.)

The basic idea of software (and sometimes human) entities interacting via a 
shared workspace (and hopefully with some sort of control) is enticingly 
simple.  (There's even a tiny CL version of a blackboard-system included as 
part of my AI Expert article.  This was provided to illustrate the basic 
ideas and to show how *not* to build a blackboard-system application that 
would not be incredibly slow.  I learned later that a number of people 
downloaded and actually tried to use that *bad*--but working--example in 
real applications!!)

Anyway, the bottom line is that there is no deep theory behind the basic 
blackboard-system approach (so it doesn't fit into AI course structures or 
textbooks).  How all the pieces come together to work powerfully and 
efficiently, however, is subtle.  As with CL programming, there's no simple 
"replicate this pattern" workflow to crafting a complex BB application (so 
that scares other people away).  I highlighted some of this in my ILC03 
presentation/paper.

As for GBBopen, no one is "selling" anything (so there is no motivation to 
grab market share).  Some very complex and serious things are being done 
with it (as was the case with the GBB product), but they are often "off the 
radar" (sometimes intentionally).

So, good for you that you are working through GBBopen and the Tutorial. 
That will put you in a position to judge whether a blackboard-system 
approach is useful for your work.  Note that there are also applications 
that make use of GBBopen's blackboard objects (unit instances) and 
proximity-based retrieval capabilities, link (bidirectional pointer) 
operations, and event functions—but without using a control shell. By 
traditional definition, these applications are not "blackboard 
applications," but they still use GBBopen's :gbbopen-core facilities to 
significant advantage.


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