Larry Harris (computer scientist)

Last updated
Larry R. Harris
Alma mater Cornell University
Occupation(s)Scholar and businessperson
Notable workArtificial Intelligence Enters the Marketplace

Larry R. Harris is an American researcher and businessperson. He is best known for his work in artificial intelligence, and is founder of the companies AICorp and EasyAsk, originally known as Linguistic Technology Corporation.

Contents

Early life and career

Harris was born in 1947. He received his PhD from Cornell University in 1970, where his dissertation was entitled A Model for Adaptive Problem Solving Applied to Natural Language Acquisition. It focused on the process of how a robot might learn a language's vocabulary and grammar from exploring a room receiving commentary from a human. He then became an assistant professor, and later an associate professor, of Mathematics at Dartmouth College, and developed the first computer educational programs at the university. In 1973 he developed the Dartmouth Computer Chess Program, where he led a team of undergraduates to develop a computer chess program that competed in national computer chess tournaments. [1] Harris also worked in helping machines solve language problems. [2] As a researcher, he studied the area of Natural Language Data Base Query, providing the ability to ask ordinary English questions about the contents of computer databases. The research system was named ROBOT. [3] Early papers of his were published in journals including the International Journal of Man-Machine Studies and the Journal of Cybernetics. In 1977 Harris was a Visiting Professor at the MIT AI Lab. [1]

Business career

Harris cofounded Artificial Intelligence Corporation (later known as AICorp) in 1975, [2] serving as CEO and chairman, [1] [4] where he developed the mainframe product, INTELLECT, which was available for purchase as of 1981, and became a widely used natural language mainframe interface product in the early 1980s. The system used a basic lexicon of 400 words automatically augmented by the words and names in the database itself. [5] In 1983, Intellect became the first software product created by an outside vendor to be sold by IBM. [6] Through the product, Harris became one of the first entrepreneurs to make a profit based on artificial intelligence technology. [7] In 1988 he also co-developed the Knowledge-Base Management System (KBMS), [1] which enabled an inference engine to reason over information stored in relational databases. [8] AICorp went public in 1990, trading on the NASDAQ. [9] In 1994, Harris founded Linguistic Technology Corporation, which did business as EasyAsk, which enabled English language questions to be asked on personal computers about information in databases or on the internet. In 2005 EasyAsk was acquired by Progress Software. [2] From 1995 to 2005, Harris served on the board of directors for Progress Software. [10]

Books

In 1986 Harris co-authored the book Artificial Intelligence Enters the Marketplace with D.B. Davis, which discussed the early commercial possibilities within the artificial intelligence industry. [7]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Lucci, Stephen; Kopec, Danny (10 December 2015). Artificial Intelligence in the 21st Century. Stylus Publishing, LLC. ISBN   9781944534530 – via Google Books.
  2. 1 2 3 "Whatever happened to artificial intelligence?". PC World.
  3. ↑ Harris, Larry R. (20 June 1978). "The ROBOT System: Natural Language Processing Applied to Data Base Query". ACM: 165–172. doi: 10.1145/800127.804087 . S2CID   1732335.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ↑ Enterprise, I. D. G. (17 August 1987). "Computerworld". IDG Enterprise – via Google Books.
  5. ↑ Jorna, René J.; Heusden, Barend van; Posner, Roland (20 June 1993). Signs, Search and Communication: Semiotic Aspects of Artificial Intelligence. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN   9783110136586 – via Google Books.
  6. ↑ Ronald Rosenberg (June 16, 1983). "A natural language of its own". Boston Globe. p. 68.
  7. 1 2 Taylor, William A. (1988). What Every Engineer Should Know about Artificial Intelligence. MIT Press. ISBN   9780262200691.
  8. ↑ Williamson, Mickey (1987-11-23). "AI Joins the Working World". Computerworld. Vol. 21, no. 47. International Data Group. Retrieved 2019-06-22.
  9. ↑ Edelman, Lawrence (1990-06-27). "AICorp of Waltham Goes Public". The Boston Globe. p. 45.
  10. ↑ "Larry R. Harris: Executive Profile & Biography". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2019-06-22.
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