Math-Frolic Interview #46
“As complexity rises, precise statements lose meaning and meaningful statements lose precision”. ― Lotfi A. Zadeh, 'father' of fuzzy logic
“As complexity rises, precise statements lose meaning and meaningful statements lose precision”. ― Lotfi A. Zadeh, 'father' of fuzzy logic
A short while back I posted about “fuzzy logic” and hoped to do a little followup on the topic. A researcher in the area has sent along some short answers to a few questions I had. Dr. Robert John has been a computer science professor at the University of Nottingham since 2013. According to his biographical sketch he received “a first degree (first class) in Mathematics, an MSc in Statistics and a PhD in Fuzzy Logic,” and prior to his University role he worked in industry first for British Gas in London Research Station as an Operational Research mathematician, where he became interested in Artificial Intelligence, and later working in the financial services industry. His main research interest is “in the modeling of human expertise in decision support using fuzzy logic.” His responses:
1) How widely available in college curriculums are courses in fuzzy logic these days?
In the UK and Europe pretty widespread on computer science undergraduate and postgraduate taught courses.
2) I realize you’re in the UK, but can you say anything comparatively about the use of fuzzy logic in various countries (China, Japan, Russia, Europe…) versus the U.S.? (Is the U.S. behind some other nations in the application of fuzzy logic?)
If you look at the research landscape on fuzzy logic there is a huge community in China with researchers there dominating many journals. There are very strong research groups in fuzzy logic in Spain with other groups in Europe. The US has some of the leading researchers in fuzzy logic but I suspect the activity level for such a large country is low.
3) In what areas is fuzzy logic being best or most widely applied these days (computer science, AI, engineering, manufacturing, medicine, driverless cars, speech recognition, economics….?)
Across the computer science and Engineering community across a wide variety of application areas. Fuzzy logic has always had many control applications but now being applied widely in decision support systems.
4) What are some good introductory books on the subject you’d recommend to laypersons? And how about textbooks for the more academically-inclined?
Also, any websites you’d especially recommend for readers wanting a good introduction to fuzzy logic?
There is not a good current text book in my opinion.
[...disappointed to hear this. The two old, popular books I’ve previously mentioned for laypeople (“Fuzzy Logic” by McNeill & Freiberger, and Bart Kosko’s “Fuzzy Thinking”) are just rough overviews of the subject, that don’t get into the nuts & bolts. If anyone cares to mention better, more recent texts, or good websites, feel free to in the comments.]
5) What can be said about the current popularity (and any similarities) of Bayesian techniques and probability versus fuzzy logic? (I’ve seen some differing accounts, that they compete or overlap, or even that fuzzy logic subsumes Bayesianism?)
They are different. The Bayesian approach is extremely popular and that community look down on fuzzy logic.
[...Here are a couple of online forums where the approaches are discussed/debated:
6) What does your own work in fuzzy logic involve?
I work in type-2 fuzzy logic - fuzzy fuzzy logic. Mostly in applications such as wind farm layout, supply chain management etc. All with PhD students. My papers are here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=33ftCdEAAAAJ&hl=en
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Thanks Dr. John; I'm surprised I don't read more about fuzzy logic here in the US; it seems (to me) to have more intuitive appeal than other forms of probability/logic. Interesting, though perhaps not surprising, to hear that China is a leader in the field, and will be interesting to see what the future holds.
[And if anyone out there IS significantly involved in fuzzy logic in the U.S. I'd still be interested to hear more about where things stand in this country.]
[And if anyone out there IS significantly involved in fuzzy logic in the U.S. I'd still be interested to hear more about where things stand in this country.]
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