Symbolics Inc, Cambridge, Massachusetts, has decided to buy out the investors in the Limited Partnership tax shelter it formed to develop its Ivory artificial intelligence microprocessor, paying them off with its own shares. It says it has reached agreement in principle with Merrill Lynch Capital Markets-sponsored ML Technology Ventures LP to buy its interest in the research and development venture started in April 1986 to develop an advanced computer system based on the Ivory chip, a single-chip implementation of a symbolic processor used in commercial applications of artificial intelligence. In exchange, Symbolics will issue ML Technology with 968,965 shares. The 40-bit symbolic processor, developed in-house at Symbolics, is claimed to provide lower cost, increased reliability and higher performance than current board-level processors. Symbolics is aiming to get the Ivory technology into its product line by the second half of 1988.