General Problem Solver - Definition and Overview

General Problem Solver (GPS) was a computer program created in 1957 by Herbert Simon and Alan Newell to prove theorems and play chess. It was based on Simon and Newell's theoretical work on logic machines. While GPS solved simple problems such as the Towers of Hanoi that could be sufficiently formalized, it could not solve any real-world problems.

The user defined objects and operations that could be done on the objects and GPS generated heuristics by trial-and-error in order to solve problems. It focused on the available operations, finding what inputs were acceptable and what outputs were generated. It then created subgoals to get closer and closer to the goal.

References

• Newell, A.; Shaw, J.C.; Simon, H.A. (1959). Report on a general problem-solving program. Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Processing. pp. 256-264.

• Newell, A. (1963). A guide to the general problem-solver program GPS-2-2. RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California. Technical Report No. RM-3337-PR.

• Ernst, G.W. and Newell, A. (1969). GPS: a case study in generality and problem solving. Academic Press. (revised version of Ernst's 1966 dissertation, Carnegie Institute of Technology.)