Intelligent user interfaces

Intelligent user interfaces aim to make fifth generation computers usable by far more people than use computers at present. This is in spite of the complexity of the systems, and the fact that many users will not be computer experts. The technique is to make the computer behave much more as a person would expect. Two main channels of communication are being emphasized: the use of natural language and image processing.

Although a complete natural language will be beyond the capabilities of even a fifth generation computer, the intention is to enable them to use a large enough subset to make a number of voice-driven applications possible. Image processing requires the computer to be able to accept video pictures as input, and generate output of the same quality. Some approximation to three-dimensional vision is required. Intelligent interfaces will be supported by a complete hardware and software subsystem of the computer, as described above.

Applications of fifth generation computers

A very wide range of applications are planned for fifth generation computers, although their precise capabilities will not become clear until more development work has been done. Many applications will be expert systems of some sort.

The main industrial application is likely to be intelligent robots, with some degree of visual perception, and the ability to be instructed to attain certain goals, rather than to perform a sequence of steps, as at present. The robot will work out the sequence of steps to be performed, according to the goals, and external conditions of which it is aware.

Military applications include strategic and tactical planning and decision support systems, and automated weapons systems. The latter include intelligent guidance systems for missiles, and missile defence systems for aircraft and ships. Digital communications systems which are secure against electronic counter-measures are a likely by-product of VLSI chip design.

In commerce, corporate knowledge bases are likely to be constructed on top of corporate databases. Decision support systems for managers will use these knowledge bases to assist with planning and evaluation. The voice-activated word processor is the ultimate aim of a number of fifth generation projects, with a very large potential market awaiting the first team to achieve it. Automatic, or (more realistically) semi-automatic language translation systems are a similar application.

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