The role of formal specification in rule-based real-time AI

This paper describes the role of formal specification in the development of AI systems: it is seen as an important step in the development of reliable real-time AI systems. It discusses some of the issues involved in formal specification and their relationship to current practise and theory. Three completed specifications are described. The paper describes the use of formal methods in the development of AI interpreters and relates formal methods at this level to work in knowledge representation. The role of formal specification in the modelling of experimental systems is also discussed