Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) is a

computer language A computer language is a formal language used to communicate with a computer. Types of computer languages include: * Software construction#Construction languages, Construction language – all forms of communication by which a human can Comput ...

designed to enable systems to share and re-use information from

knowledge-based systems A knowledge-based system (KBS) is a computer program that reasons and uses a knowledge base to solve complex problems. Knowledge-based systems were the focus of early artificial intelligence researchers in the 1980s. The term can refer to a b ...

. KIF is similar to

frame language Frames are an artificial intelligence data structure used to divide knowledge into substructures by representing "stereotyped situations". They were proposed by Marvin Minsky in his 1974 article "A Framework for Representing Knowledge". Frames are ...

s such as

KL-One KL-ONE (pronounced "kay ell won") is a knowledge representation Knowledge representation (KR) aims to model information in a structured manner to formally represent it as knowledge in knowledge-based systems whereas knowledge representation and ...

and

LOOM A loom is a device used to weaving, weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the Warp (weaving), warp threads under tension (mechanics), tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of ...

but unlike such language its primary role is not intended as a framework for the expression or use of knowledge but rather for the interchange of knowledge between systems. The designers of KIF likened it to

PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language and dynamically typed, stack-based programming language. It is most commonly used in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm, but as a Turing complete programming language, it c ...

. PostScript was not designed primarily as a language to store and manipulate documents but rather as an interchange format for systems and devices to share documents. In the same way KIF is meant to facilitate sharing of knowledge across different systems that use different languages, formalisms, platforms, etc. KIF has a declarative semantics. It is meant to describe facts about the world rather than processes or procedures. Knowledge can be described as objects, functions, relations, and rules. It is a formal language, i.e., it can express arbitrary statements in

first order logic First-order logic, also called predicate logic, predicate calculus, or quantificational logic, is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantified variables over ...

and can support reasoners that can prove the consistency of a set of KIF statements. KIF also supports

non-monotonic reasoning A non-monotonic logic is a formal logic whose entailment relation is not monotonic. In other words, non-monotonic logics are devised to capture and represent defeasible inferences, i.e., a kind of inference in which reasoners draw tentative concl ...

. KIF was created by Michael Genesereth,

Richard Fikes Richard Earl Fikes (born October 4, 1942) is a computer scientist and Professor (Research) Emeritus in the Computer Science department of Stanford University. He led Stanford's Knowledge Systems Laboratory from 1991 to 2006, and has held appoint ...

and others participating in the

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...

knowledge sharing Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge (namely, information, skills, or expertise) is exchanged among people, friends, peers, families, communities (for example, Wikipedia), or within or between organizations. It bridges the ind ...

Effort. Although the original KIF group intended to submit to a formal standards body, that did not occur. A later version called

Common Logic Common Logic (CL) is a framework for a family of logic languages, based on first-order logic, intended to facilitate the exchange and transmission of knowledge in computer-based systems. The CL definition permits and encourages the development ...

has since been developed for submission to

ISO The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Me ...

and has been approved and published. A variant called SUO-KIF is the language in which the

Suggested Upper Merged Ontology The Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO) is an upper ontology intended as a foundation ontology for a variety of computer information processing systems. SUMO defines a hierarchy of ''classes'' and related rules and relationships. These are exp ...

Suggested Upper Merged Ontology
is written. A practical application of the Knowledge interchange format is an

agent communication language Agent Communication Language (ACL), are computer communication protocols that are intended for AI Agents to communication with each other. During the 2007, protocols of this nature were proposed which include: * FIPA-ACL (by the Foundation for In ...

in a multi-agent system.

References

External links

Knowledge Interchange Format
page at the

Stanford AI Lab Stanford University has many centers and institutes dedicated to the study of various specific topics. These centers and institutes may be within a department, within a school but across departments, an independent laboratory, institute or center ...

Common Logic
Knowledge representation languages Ontology (information science) Logic in computer science {{Compu-sci-stub

See also

References

External links