Report Number: CS-TR-84-1034
Institution: Stanford University, Department of Computer Science
Title: BB1: an architecture for blackboard systems that control, explain, and learn about their own behavior
Author: Hayes-Roth, Barbara
Date: December 1984
Abstract: BB1 implements a domain-independent "blackboard control architecture" for Al systems that control, explain, and learn about their own problem-solving behavior. A BB1 system comprises: a user-defined domain blackboard, a pre-defined control blackboard, user-defined domain and control knowledge sources, a few generic control knowledge sources, and a pre-defined basic control loop. The architecture's run time user interface provides capabilities for: displaying the blackboard, knowledge sources, and pending knowledge source actions, recommending an action for execution, explaining a recommendation, accepting a user's override, executing a designated action, and running without user intervention. BB1 supports a variety of control behavior ranging from execution of pre-defined control procedures to dynamic construction and modification of complex control plans during problem solving. It explains problem-solving actions by showing their roles in the underlying control plan. It learns new control heuristics from experience, applies them within the current problem-solving session, and uses them to construct new control plans in subsequent sessions.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/84/1034/CS-TR-84-1034.pdf