Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF)

Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF) is a computer-oriented language developed for the exchange of knowledge among disparate systems. It is designed to serve as an intermediary through which various knowledge-based systems can communicate, share, and understand each other's information, regardless of the internal languages or formalisms they use. Unlike frame languages such as KL-ONE or LOOM, which are primarily intended for structuring and utilizing knowledge within a system, KIF's main purpose is to facilitate the interchange of knowledge between systems.

It provides a syntax for expressing knowledge in a way that is both machine-readable and platform-independent, thus enabling interoperability among systems that might otherwise be incompatible. KIF is to knowledge-based systems what PostScript is to document interchange: a standard format that allows for the seamless transfer of complex data and structures.

‍

Consider a scenario where two AI systems, one using a frame-based language and the other a logic-based language, need to exchange data about geographical information for a navigation application. KIF can be used to represent this geographical information in a neutral format that both systems can understand and use, regardless of their underlying knowledge representation paradigms.

For instance, a piece of knowledge like "Paris is the capital of France" can be encoded in KIF and shared between the two systems, enabling them to perform tasks such as route planning or geographic querying with a shared understanding of the relevant facts, without the need for manual translation or re-implementation of knowledge in each system's native format.

‍