What is a Knowledge Representation?

What is a knowledge representation? We argue that the notion can best be understood in terms of five distinct roles it plays, each crucial to the task at hand:

  1. A knowledge representation (KR) is most fundamentally a surrogate, a substitute for the thing itself, used to enable an entity to determine consequences by thinking rather than acting, i.e., by reasoning about the world rather than taking action in it.

  2. It is a set of ontological commitments, i.e., an answer to the question: In what terms should I think about the world?

  3. It is a fragmentary theory of intelligent reasoning, expressed in terms of three components: (i) the representation's fundamental conception of intelligent reasoning; (ii) the set of inferences the representation sanctions; and (iii) the set of inferences it recommends.

  4. It is a medium for pragmatically efficient computation, i.e., the computational environment in which thinking is accomplished. One contribution to this pragmatic efficiency is supplied by the guidance a representation provides for organizing information so as to facilitate making the recommended inferences.

  5. It is a medium of human expression, i.e., a language in which we say things about the world.

--R. Davis, Shrobe, and P. Szolovits. "What is a Knowledge Representation?"

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