A HYPOTHESIS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR INTERPRETING SETI MESSAGES
- Paper ID
IAC_03_IAA_9_P_05
- author
- company
Information and Computer Sciences Department
- country
U.S.A.
- year
2003
- abstract
SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) uses radio telescopes to listen for a message from an alien intelligence. If such a message is found, a huge collaborative effort by a wide range of experts will probably be necessary in order to interpret it. Coordinating this effort will also be a challenge. HypMaTISM (Hypothesis Management Tool for Interpreting SETI Messages) keeps track of a pool of hypotheses, the relationships between them, the user’s confidence in the hypotheses and relationships, and code fragments that partially process the system’s input. Although HypMaTISM was designed with the SETI problem in mind, we believe that it could be a useful tool for other large-scale collaborative projects. It could also be a valuable pedagogical tool.