Integrating natural language, knowledge representation and reasoning, and analogical processing to learn by reading

Learning by reading requires integrating several strands of AI research. We describe a prototype system, Learning Reader, which combines natural language processing, a large-scale knowledge base, and analogical processing to learn by reading simplified language texts. We outline the architecture of Learning Reader and some of system-level results, then explain how these results arise from the components. Specifically, we describe the design, implementation, and performance characteristics of a natural language understanding model (DMAP) that is tightly coupled to a knowledge base three orders of magnitude larger than previous attempts. We show that knowing the kinds of questions being asked and what might be learned can help provide more relevant, efficient reasoning. Finally, we show that analogical processing provides a means of generating useful new questions and conjectures when the system ruminates off-line about what it has read.