A definition of tool use due to Benjamin Beck has served the field of animal cognition well for over 25 years. This article proposes a new, more explanatory definition that accounts for tool use in terms of two complementary subcategories of behaviors: behaviors aimed at altering a target object by mechanical means and behaviors that mediate the flow of information between the tool user and the environment or other organisms in the environment. The conceptual foundation and implications of the new definition are contrasted with those of existing definitions, particularly Beck's. The new definition is informally evaluated with respect to a set of scenarios in which differences from Beck's definition and others in the literature can be seen.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have come a long way from the earlier days of conceptual theories, to being an integral part of today's technological society. Rapid growth of AI/ML and their penetration within a plethora of civilian and military applications, while successful, has also opened new challenges and obstacles. With almost no human involvement required for some of the new decision-making AI/ML systems, there is now a pressing need to gain better insights into how these decisions are made. This has given rise to a new field of AI research, Explainable AI (XAI). In this paper, we present a survey of XAI characteristics and properties. We provide an in-depth review of XAI themes, and describe the different methods for designing and developing XAI systems, both during and post model-development. We include a detailed taxonomy of XAI goals, methods, and evaluation, and sketch the major milestones in XAI research. An overview of XAI for security, and cybersecurity of XAI systems, is also provided. Open challenges are delineated, and measures for evaluating XAI system robustness are described.
The VisMap system provides for "visual manipulation" of arbitrary off-the-shelf applications, through an application's graphical user interface. VisMap's API-independent control has advantages for tasks that can benefit from direct access to the functions of the user interface. We describe the design goals and architecture of the system, and we discuss two applications, a user-controlled visual scripting program and an autonomous solitaire-playing program, which together demonstrate some of the capabilities and limitations of the approach.
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