Can Cyc reason about data not stored in Cyc-format databases ?
Yes. In the previous version of Cyc (Cyc 9) a pilot application named Cyccess was developed. Through Cyccess, Cyc could interface with structured information sources (SIS) such as databases or spreadsheets. Cyccess used Cyc to understand the contents of structured sources, to retrieve information, and to pose queries that depended on a combination of Cyc knowledge and the data in the SIS. After the information in a SIS was appropriately linked to assertions in Cyc, all the Cyc inferencing, guessing, and consistency checking capabilities were available. An interesting implication of this is that Cyc could use specific facts or time-sensitive information without duplicating it within the Cyc knowledge base. More recently, the Cyc team has built a production version of a database browsing and retrieval application for one of Cycorp’s sponsors.
