Accessing Artificial Intelligence Applications over the World-Wide Web

In this paper we will show how LispWeb, an HTTP server entirely written in Common Lisp, can be used to access Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications over the World-Wide Web (WWW). We will discuss how an AI application can benefit from being accessible in the WWW environment, and the requirements it must satisfy in order to be usable through the WWW interaction paradigm. We will describe how a Lisp systems can be accessed through a Web-based interface, and an extension to the HTTP protocol that can be used to invoke generic functions on the LispWeb server. As an example, we will describe how an existing AI application written in Common Lisp (ERA - Epistemological Reasoning Architecture) was integrated with the LispWeb server and endowed with a graphical user interface written in Java.

1. IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italy.

2. Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, UK.

3. Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Università di Pavia, Italy.