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We have long been obsessed with the dream of creating intelligent machines. This vision can be traced back to Greek civilization, and the notion that mortals somehow can create machines that think has persisted throughout history. Until this decade these illusions have borne no substance. The birth of the computer in the 1940s did cause a resurgence of the cybernaut idea, but the computer's role was primarily one of number‐crunching and realists soon came to respect the enormous difficulties in crafting machines that could accomplish even the simplest of human tasks.

Because much human knowledge consists of elementary fragments of know‐how, applying a significant amount of knowledge requires new ways to organize decision‐making fragments into competent wholes. Knowledge systems collect these fragments in a knowledge base and then access the knowledge base to reason about each specific problem. As a consequence, knowledge systems differ from conventional programs in the way they're organized, the way they incorporate knowledge, the way they execute, and the impression they create through their interactions. Knowledge systems simulate expert human performance, and they present a humanlike facade to the user.

In selecting the contributions to this special issue, the editors have tried to plot a course that describes the state of the AI field for both the reader unacquainted with AI and for those who are. We have done this by selecting key research papers in the areas of AI that are impacting and will continue to impact libraries and by including sidebars that give context to the research papers. The language of the research papers is not simplified; AI is not a simple field. But neither is it incomprehensible, so if parts of this special issue are found to be difficult, the reader is advised to concentrate on the overall ideas rather than their specific expression.

Pew and Mavor (1998) called for an integrative representation of human behavior for use in models of individual combatants and organizations. Models with integrated representation of behavior have only been achieved at rudimentary levels according to those performing the studies (e.g. Pew & Mavor, 1998; Tulving, 2002) and those building the models (e.g. Warwick et al., 2002). This chapter will address aspects of cognitive performance that are important to incorporate into models of combat based on acceptance of theory, strength of empirical data, or for other reasons such as to bridge gaps where incomplete knowledge exists about cognitive behavior and performance. As a starting point, this chapter will assess which of Pew and Mavor’s recommendations are still appropriate as determined by a review of selected literature on cognition and its representation. We will also provide some review and extensions of key literature on cognition and modeling and suggest a way ahead to close the remaining gaps. Different aspects of cognition are described with recent findings, and most are followed by an example of how they have been represented in computer models or a discussion of challenges to their representation in modeling.

A LASER METHOD FOR DATA STORAGE Dr. George Castro and his colleagues of the Physical Science Department of IBM's San Jose Laboratory have patented a laser method of recording data. They suggest the method would enable the brain's capacity to be put on a square surface about a yard across, assuming that the human memory can hold only a million billion bits of basic information.

People invest much time and money in consuming knowledge. We argue that people systematically vary in the types of knowledge they prefer to know and that such preferences can have broad implications for consumer behavior. We illustrate this in the context of the preference for practical versus theoretical knowledge. Specifically, we propose and show that some people prefer to know more about how to apply and make use of phenomena they encounter, whereas others prefer to know more about what explicates and underlies the phenomena. We further propose and demonstrate that the extent to which people prefer practical versus theoretical knowledge can help predict their behaviors in a wide variety of consumption domains such as education (e.g., choice of learning materials, preference for different MBA programs), marketing information (e.g., skepticism toward advertising and reference prices), and intertemporal discounting (e.g., reaction to service delays; preference for fast food restaurants).

Market participants form conceptualizations of the products exchanged within product markets. Strategy scholars have begun to investigate how these product conceptual systems influence firm strategic behavior. Much of this work characterize these concepts as categories and theorize that the strategic implications derive from the potential penalties of not fitting into a category. This view has limitations in that it does not fully address the other cognitive tasks that concepts perform as well as other system-level characteristics of the conceptual systems. This chapter addresses these limitations by framing the use of concepts as part of the interpretive processes that enable market exchange. It develops a system-view of product concepts and then shows how the structure of the product categorical system influences the interpretation of product concepts. It introduces new mechanisms centered on cognitive processing that influence strategic action within product markets.

The purpose of this study is to examine individuals’ subjective perception of spare time available for activities that are more or less attractive.

Three experiments with adult samples manipulate liking of activity and temporal distance and assess the resulting predicted time available.

The authors demonstrate that individuals’ subjective perception of spare time is influenced by how much they like or dislike the activities they plan for. Individuals perceive they have more spare time for activities they like than ones they dislike. The strength of individuals’ liking for activities has more impact on perceived spare time available for liked activities than for disliked ones. These effects are attenuated by individuals’ propensity to plan.

Understanding the effect of spare time perception contributes to the literature on resource slack and provides insights into individuals’ planning for time.

This paper reports on an investigation of the integration of symbolic computation and reasoning into highly computerized numerically‐based realtime control systems for complex plant process management. This is the natural next step in an evolving maturation of the use of computers for automated monitoring and control of continuous processes. A particular implementation involving nuclear power plant intelligent monitoring is being developed from which overall principles and specifications can be distilled, ultimately leading to a general methodology that can be applied to other continuous plant processes.

A scenario is given of a possible library of the future. Such a library might have shelves containing talking books, video cassettes, computer programs on floppy disks and the entire contents of Chemical Abstracts and Encyclopaedia Brittanica on biochips. The catalogue of the library stock and the reference books might well be stored on optical disks and viewed on flat screens. Information on the classification scheme and how to use the collection might be provided by listening to tape recordings and voice synthesisers might inform borrowers where to return items. Robots collect these items from dispensers and replace them on the shelves. Each item in the library has a barcode which is scanned by a laser to provide details of loans/returns and patrons. Terminals linked to computers via satellites enable distant files to be searched on demand for information not stored in the library. Most of the journals taken by the library will be in digital form but a touch of a button on the terminal causes the images to be printed out locally. Fact or fiction? The paper goes on to describe some of the equipment that is currently available to them in the future (such as holography, robotics and satellites). Where we are now in terms of technological developments in libraries and information centres is discussed with reference to some actual projects such as Maggie's Place and Dave's Den. Finally, the impact of such futuristic, electronic libraries on the user as well as the librarian is considered.