In article , Richard Conway
wrote:
On that topic, I have a theory that in order to create the ultimate AI
computer, all that is needed it to write a program that allows the machine
to cross reference unknown words in text files. Then simply feed the
entire contents of the OED into it and let it site there for a bit while
it cross references every word in it. It will then be able to
reccursively cross-reference every word and gain total and utter
comprehension of the English language.

30 years ago that's what we thought. Then computers started to get fast enough
to do a very small amount of that task and we realised that each word didn't
need simple hooks to other words but a whole word-specific program of their
own. AI (true AI) is now further away than it was in the late seventies. ;-(

I don't know how she worked it out - or how much it was deliberate - but my 14
month old granddaughter calls our small dogs 'dog' and her own (much larger)
dog 'dog-dog'. One of us swears that, on seeing a horse, she called it
'dog-dog-dog'. Now tell me how you'd program a computer to produce the
possible grammar behind that!

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing