Moderated by Stephen Muggleton.

Erik Sandewall On the Design of Software Individuals

The article mentioned above has been submitted to the Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, and the present page contains the review discussion. Click here for more explanations and for the webpage of theauthor, Erik Sandewall. Overview of interactions N:o Question Answer(s) Continued discussion 1 15.10  Anonymous Referee 1     2 15.10  Anonymous Referee 2       Q1. Anonymous Referee 1 (15.10): Recommendation: Accept as is. (Details of the review withheld by the request of the reviewer) Q2. Anonymous Referee 2 (15.10): This manuscript proposes a design philosophy for what the author terms "software individuals". I recommend acceptance of this manuscript after extensive revision. The core of the manuscript is worth disseminating, but it is currently too long and discursive; everything its says could be said in perhaps half the space. The manuscript appears more philosophical than scientific. It would make the paper much easier to understand if concrete examples were used to illustrate the points the author makes. Very strangely, the manuscript does not seem to use the term "agent" anywhere. This is peculiar as it would appear that software individuals are a form of agent. In the related work section, agents should be mentioned and the differences between software individuals made clear. At several places in the manuscript the author tries to distinguish his work from that in the field of genetic programming, this is not always convincing. For example, on the first page it is claimed what distinguishes software individuals from genetic programming is the symbolic nature of the individuals. I am not a worker in GPs, but I believe they would hotly dispute this point, and argue that they often use symbolic descriptions. The paper is generally well written. P2. "We have worked" should be: We have designed P3. Why is small size crucial for self modification?   Background: Review Protocol Pages and the ETAI This Review Protocol Page (RPP) is a part of the webpage structure for the Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, or ETAI. The ETAI is an electronic journal that uses the Internet medium not merely for distributing the articles, but also for a novel, two-stage review procedure. The first review phase is open and allows the peer community to ask questions to the author and to create a discussion about the contribution. The second phase - called refereeing in the ETAI - is like conventional journal refereeing except that the major part of the required feedback is supposed to have occurred already in the first, review phase. The referees make a recommendation whether the article is to be accepted or declined, as usual. The article and the discussion remain on-line regardless of whether the article was accepted or not. Additional questions and discussion after the acceptance decision are welcomed. The Review Protocol Page is used as a working structure for the entire reviewing process. During the first (review) phase it accumulates the successive debate contributions. If the referees make specific comments about the article in the refereeing phase, then those comments are posted on the RPP as well, but without indicating the identity of the referee. (In many cases the referees may return simply an " accept" or " decline" recommendation, namely if sufficient feedback has been obtained already in the review phase).