Introduction to Artificial Intelligence | Knowledge Representation | F.

van Harmelen |
Lmar Hazrat 2821477 | 06/09/2023

In today’s class we got a lecture from prof. F. van Harmelen, who is a professor of Knowledge
Representation & Reasoning in the Computer Science Department at the Vrije Universiteit in
Amsterdam. Van Harmelen was lecturing about his speciality: Knowledge Representation (KR) and
also Machine Learning (ML). In this lecture he told us about the following subjects (which I am going
to explain as short but clear as possible):
-Examples of intelligent behaviour
-The main lines of AI
-The differences between those lines
-Combining ML and KR
-The handbook of KR

The examples which were given about intelligent behaviour were:

-Carrying out complex reasoning (e.g. to prove theorism)
-Draw plausible interferences (e.g. to apply the law)
-Use natural language (e.g. read stories and answer/ask questions about them)
-Solving novel complex problems (e.g. generating plans)

There are actually two main lines of AI development, Symbolic Representation and Statistical
Representation. Symbolic Representation can be explained as giving explicit information to solve
something, a question could be like “How do you solve problems?”.
The Statistical Representation can be explained as letting it fix problems by itself by only giving it
examples. The differences between those two lines can be seen as following:
Statistical AI Symbolic AI
Pattern recognition (image, Planning (autonomous space missions)
sound, shape etc.)
Motor skills (robots) Reasoning (diagnosis, design and decision support)
Speech generation (sound) Language generation (conversations beyond Q&A)
Search engines Search engines

Human Intelligence is all about thinking both fast and slow. Thinking fast is all about ML which can be
put under the statistical reasoning, while thinking slow is about KR and this falls under the symbolic
reasoning.
Thinking fast = Machine Learning = Statistical
Thinking slow = Knowledge Representation = Symbolic

Other differences between those two types can be found wile using datasets, the differences can be
described in the following way:
Symbolic Statistical
Construction by Human effort Data hunger
Scalable +/-* +/-**
Explainable + -
Generalisable Performance cliff*** Performance cliff***
*=This type will get worse when getting more data, one reason is that it will be more expensive.
**=This type will get worse when getting less data, because it cannot end the data hunger.
***=A performance cliff means that if you ask a question outside the expertise area, the AI will drop
in performance and will not be able to give (right) answers.
The combination of KR and ML is used in Neuro symbiotic systems, where system 1 (KR) will be
combined with system 2 (ML). In this case ML is the leading part where two types of combinations
can be formed: Informed ML (using KR) and Explainable ML (using KR). With the Informed ML the
tasks are divided as following: the ML is the predictor and the KR is the selector when there is for
example a data set given.
In the case of the explainable ML, the ML part is still predicting but the KR is now explaining
everything when a data set is given.

The handbook of KR is a book which is used by researchers of KR, but we only got to know one
chapter of it. It was about Knowledge Graphs, knowledge graphs are used to link information with
each other in/out of a database which a computer can use to solve questions.

To end this report I want to give a reflection on the professor, I think that prof. van Harmelen has a
good way of explaining. Everything that he taught us in the lecture was totally new for me, but
surprisingly I did understand everything he said. He also has a clear voice, good articulation and
knows when to put in a joke in his sentence. He also made time for some questions before, while and
after the lecture. I left the lecture hall with pages full of notes so I am content. I do not have any
complaints only compliments for professor van Harmelen.