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%aiedi[s90,jmc]		Artificial Intelligence and Electronic Data Interchange
tajnai@cs
Abstract:
Artificial Intelligence and Electronic Data Interchange

	The object of this lecture is describe some of the
ideas of artificial intelligence (AI) that may help
expand the usability of electronic data interchange (EDI).

	Business communication requires the use of intelligence.
For example, a person concerned with ordering goods from other
companies may have to take into account a reason why delivery may
be delayed or whether an offer of goods similar but cheaper
than those originally contemplated is acceptable.

	An increasing amount of business communication involves
electronic data interchange in which a computer belonging to one
business communicates with a computer belonging to another.  At
present EDI involves only the most routine communication for
which rigid formats are appropriate.  As EDI expands it will
encounter limitations of the formats so far standardized, e.g.
X12, which standardizes some specific business documents like
invoices.  The more ``intelligence'' can be put in the programs
that do EDI and the more flexible the formats allowed, the
more communication can be relegated to EDI.  All these
financial whizzes that now have to telephone Japan in the
middle of the night will be able to get more sleep or even
go into some more productive line of work.

	I used quotes on ``intelligence'' above, because the
first steps needn't involve much artificial intelligence.
Nevertheless, in the long run all intelligence we can achieve
in our programs will be useful.

	Certain recent advances in artificial
intelligence will prove useful for programming business
communication.  Since 1977, non-monotonic logic has developed
as part of AI research.  Its use is appropriate for programs
that can take into account unexpected events that require
modifying normal procedures.

	Besides the intelligence in the programs that use EDI,
some ideas from AI and (of all things) philosophy can help with
the communication itself.  Business communication involves
questions, answers to questions, requests, authorizations,
promises and other of what the philosophers have called
``speech acts''.  Questions should be comprehensible,
answers should be truthful and responsive and promises
should be authorized and kept.  Elephant 2000 is a proposed
programming language whose inputs and outputs are formally
speech acts.  This will allow formal verification that a program
answers questions responsively, makes only authorized
commitments and keeps the commitments it makes.