::scr IA Goldrush (was Ramblings of a Classic Refugee)

[Simon Batistoni]

On 12/03/02 17:34 +0100, Arvid Gidhagen wrote:
> > Or is it a cultural thing? Once human language enabled machines are
> > everywhere, will it become customary to announce, Star Trek style,
> > "Computer, bring me my lunch"?
> 
> I don't think that will be much of a problem. People are quick to
> adapt if they feel there's anything to gain. It didn't take long
> for the public to change their attitude to cellphones from
> "stupid, unnecessary, annoying toys for yuppies" to a transparent
> necessity.

Very true. It *seems* like a big cultural leap from here, but then, I
suppose most cultural changes do.

> > I think part of the problem is that you can get a long way in creating a
> > speaking computer without needing that much actual intelligence. Languages
> > are rule-based, however complex the rule set may be, and as such are
> > translatable to the machines that we have today, provided we spend enough
> > time defining the rules.
> 
> This is certainly not an uncontroversial statement. While you can create
> a SPEAKING computer without endowing it with much intelligence, a
> COMMUNICATING computer has to be incredibly smart. Languages are so
> horribly complex and dependent on context and social factors that
> noone really has come up with anything even resembling a grand
> unifying theory of language and language use.

I think your "communicating" means the same as my "actual intelligence".
You're saying what I was saying, but much more clearly. My original point
was meant as a counter to the posit that speech-based systems and interfaces
are AI as opposed to IA or HCI. They're not AI, IMO, because they're not
intelligent. They can't actually communicate.

> > A computer with a large dictionary and a reasonable set of syllable sounds
> > can say a lot, possibly translate a lot back into text too. But give it a
> > word like fluctuate which it doesn't have, and it's unlikely to intuit its
> > meaning from the fact that it appears related to "flux", which is in the
> > dictionary.
> 
> Neither is a human, I would think...

Ah well, stupid specific example (I was thinking about the "fluxus" art
movement when I wrote it), but inference *is* how I get most of my
vocabulary, and it's certainly how I can understand most of what's going
on/being said in Italy and Spain, because I can infer from the similarities
to French, which I know quite well. But YMMV.

-- 
"In marketing the word 'free' means the cost is concealed.|   christopher
Nothing is ever free. There is always a price to pay, in  |          ross
terms of money, or effort, or time, or quality."          |tunnel visions