---
title: "A Universal Weak Method: Summary of Results"
authors:
  - "John E. Laird"
  - "Allen Newell"
doi: ""
url: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1983/186"
pdf: "https://ijcai.org/proceedings/1983/0186.pdf"
venue: "Proceedings of the Eighth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence"
year: 1983
pages: "771-772"
track: "Planning and Search"
keywords:
---

# A Universal Weak Method: Summary of Results

John E. Laird, Allen Newell

*Proceedings of the Eighth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence*, pages 771-772.

## Abstract

Th e weak me thod s occur pervasively in AI systems and may form t11 e basic methods for all intellig e nt systems. The purpose of this paper is to characterize the weak method s and to ex plain how and w hy they arise in intelligent systems. We propo se an organization, cal led a universal weak me/hod. that provid es functionalit y of all the weak methods . A universal weak meti10d is an organizational sc heme for knowledge th at produces the appropriate search behav ior given th e available ta sk-do main knowl edge. We present a prob lem solving architecture in which we realize a universal weak method . We also demonstrate the universal weak method with a. variety of weak methods on a set of tasks.