Chapter 1 looks briefly at the origins of natural language processing, the emergence of structural notions in NLP, the ways in which researchers have attempted to represent meaning, the increasing appreciation of the role of real-world knowledge, and the early indications that NLP is moving from academic research into commercial technology. The chapter concludes by considering the appropriateness of using Prolog for NLP.

We wanted to do two things with this course. First, we wanted to
provide a text that was relatively self contained, a text that would
permit someone with little or no knowledge of computing to pick up the
basics of Prolog with the minimum of fuss. We also wanted the text to
be clear enough to make it useful for self study. We believe that if
you read the text, and do the associated exercises, you will gain a
useful partial entry to the world of Prolog.

Table Of Contents

1       Introduction      
2     Using Prolog's Inference Engine
3     Backward Chaining with Uncertainty
4     Explanation
5     Production Systems
6     Frames
7     Integration
8     Backward Chaining Indexes
9     User Interface
10     Two Hybrids
11     Prototyping
12     Rubik's Cube
13     Appendix

Artificial intelligence is a hard subject to learn. I have written a book to make it easier. I explain difficult concepts in a simple, concrete way. I have organized the material in a new and (I feel) clearer way, a way in which the chapters are in a logical sequence and not just unrelated topics. I believe that with this book, readers can learn the key concepts of artificial intelligence faster and better than with other books.

I was working for an aerospace company in the 1970s when someone got a copy of the original Adventure game (a simulated world the player explores, at that time purely text-based, with natural language) and installed it on our mainframe computer. For the next month my lunch hours, evenings and weekends, as well as normal work hours, were consumed with fighting the fierce green dragon and escaping from the twisty little passages. Finally, with a few hints about the plover's egg and dynamite, I had proudly earned all the points in the game.