Inference Corporation#Automated Reasoning Tool

{{Infobox company

| logo = File:Logo of Inference Corporation.svg

| website = {{web archive|url=http://web.archive.org/web/19990209092919/http://inference.com/|title=inference.com}}

}}

Inference Corporation{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/04/business/business-technology-compaq-printer-can-tell-you-what-s-ailing-it.html

|title=Compaq Printer Can Tell You What's Ailing It

|quote= developed for Compaq by the Inference Corporation

|author=Sabra Chartrand |date=August 4, 1993}}{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/15/weekinreview/ideas-trends-can-machines-learn-think-artificial-intelligence-industry.html

|title=Can Machines Learn to Think?; The Artificial Intelligence Industry Is Retrenching

|author=John Markoff |date=May 15, 1988}} was an American software company that specialized in artificial intelligence systems.{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times

|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/25/business/ford-acquires-a-stake-in-artificial-intelligence.html

|title=Ford Acquires A Stake In Artificial Intelligence

|date=October 25, 1985}}

History

Los Angeles-based Inference was founded in 1979. In the 1990s they built a case-based computer program for Compaq Computer Corporation that would enable dealing with a situation where

"a computer printer turns out a blurry and smeared page" without having to call a help desk. Although such software already existed, the breakthrough was that it was small enough to fit "on three floppy disks."

The company's Automated Reasoning Tool (ART), initially implemented on a mainframe, subsequently made available on PCs, has been extended to ART-IM, an Information Management package; the product line originated in 1988.{{cite book

|chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4613-1009-9_53

|title=Knowledge-Based Systems and Interactive Graphics

|author=M. Ragheb |chapter=Knowledge-Based Systems and Interactive Graphics for Reactor Control using the Automated Reasoning Tool(Art) System

|year=1988|pages=429–436

|publisher=Springer

|location=Boston, MA

|doi=10.1007/978-1-4613-1009-9_53

|isbn=978-1-4612-8290-7

}}{{cite book

|chapter-url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11915

|title=[1988] Proceedings of the Twenty-First Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Volume III: Decision Support and Knowledge Based Systems Track

|author=K. D. Bimson |chapter=Conceptual model-based reasoning for knowledge-based software project management

|year=1988|volume=1

|pages=255–265

|doi=10.1109/HICSS.1988.11915

|isbn=0-8186-0843-9

|s2cid=4654605

}}

Ford and AOL are among the household-known corporations that use Inference software to enhance customer service.{{cite news

|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal

|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB940992900487504276

|title=Technology Briefs}} Inference was acquired by eGain Corporation in

2000.{{cite news |newspaper=The Wall Street Journal

|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB953213045882925378

|title=E-Commerce Software Firm eGain To Buy Inference for $73 million

|date=March 17, 2000}} Prior to that, Inference acquired 1981-founded Computer Mathematics Corporation, marketer of SMP (computer algebra system);{{cite web

|url=https://www.wolframscience.com/media/timeline.html

|title=Stephen Wolfram: A New Kind of Science}} Inference made another acquisition the year before they themselves were acquired by eGain.(Verix) {{cite web

|url=https://sec.report/Document/0000929624-99-001244/

|title=Inference Corp /ca/ 1999 8-K/A Current report |date=July 9, 1999}}

Automated Reasoning Tool

The Automated Reasoning Tool (ART) is a system designed by Paul Haley,{{cite web

|title=Automated Reasoning Tool, Online Historical Encyclopaedia of Programming Languages

|url=https://hopl.info/showlanguage2.prx?exp=1031}} Chuck Williams, Brad Allen, and Mark Wright,{{cite web

|url=http://haleyai.com/wordpress/2008/02/20/haley-art-syntax-lives-on-in-open-source-java-rules

|title=Haley / ART syntax lives on in open-source Java rules – Commercial Intelligence|date=February 20, 2008 }} to design rule-based knowledge representations with options for frame and procedural methods of knowledge base representation.{{cite report

|title=Artificial Intelligence Study |date=February 1987 |pages=2–49

|quote=ART evolved from an expert system used to interpret radar signals from space flight operation at NASA.

|url=https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a181029.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709184515/https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a181029.pdf|url-status=live|archive-date=July 9, 2021}}

ART's syntax influenced NASA's derived CLIPS in the mid-80s. ART is a derivative of OPS5, with extensions, built for the Inference Corporation.

References

External links

{{web archive|url=http://web.archive.org/web/19990209092919/http://inference.com/|title=Official website}}

Category:1979 establishments in California

Category:2000 disestablishments in California

Category:American companies established in 1979

Category:American companies disestablished in 2000

Category:Computer companies established in 1979

Category:Computer companies disestablished in 2000

Category:Defunct software companies of the United States

Category:Defunct computer companies based in California