On 7/6/2013 11:11 PM, TommiT wrote:
>> I can see machine translation that is based on statistical correlation with a
>> sufficiently large corpus of human translations, but I don't see much hope for
>> actual understanding of non-literal speech in the foreseeable future, and I'm
>> actually rather glad of that.
>
> You haven't read Ray Kurzweil's latest books then or you just don't think he's
> right?

Spend a little quality time with Siri. I did, and discovered it was hardly any better than Eliza, which is a few lines of BASIC written in the 1970's.

On 7/7/13 1:26 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 7/6/2013 11:11 PM, TommiT wrote:
>>> I can see machine translation that is based on statistical
>>> correlation with a
>>> sufficiently large corpus of human translations, but I don't see much
>>> hope for
>>> actual understanding of non-literal speech in the foreseeable future,
>>> and I'm
>>> actually rather glad of that.
>>
>> You haven't read Ray Kurzweil's latest books then or you just don't
>> think he's
>> right?
>
> Spend a little quality time with Siri. I did, and discovered it was
> hardly any better than Eliza, which is a few lines of BASIC written in
> the 1970's.

Ow come on.

Andrei

On Sunday, 7 July 2013 at 08:26:03 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 7/6/2013 11:11 PM, TommiT wrote:
>>> I can see machine translation that is based on statistical correlation with a
>>> sufficiently large corpus of human translations, but I don't see much hope for
>>> actual understanding of non-literal speech in the foreseeable future, and I'm
>>> actually rather glad of that.
>>
>> You haven't read Ray Kurzweil's latest books then or you just don't think he's
>> right?
>
> Spend a little quality time with Siri. I did, and discovered it was hardly any better than Eliza, which is a few lines of BASIC written in the 1970's.

One word: Watson.

On 7/7/2013 1:30 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 7/7/13 1:26 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 7/6/2013 11:11 PM, TommiT wrote:
>>>> I can see machine translation that is based on statistical
>>>> correlation with a
>>>> sufficiently large corpus of human translations, but I don't see much
>>>> hope for
>>>> actual understanding of non-literal speech in the foreseeable future,
>>>> and I'm
>>>> actually rather glad of that.
>>>
>>> You haven't read Ray Kurzweil's latest books then or you just don't
>>> think he's
>>> right?
>>
>> Spend a little quality time with Siri. I did, and discovered it was
>> hardly any better than Eliza, which is a few lines of BASIC written in
>> the 1970's.
>
> Ow come on.

All Siri does is recognize a set of stock patterns, just like Eliza. Step out of that, even slightly, and it reverts to a default, again, just like Eliza.

Of course, Siri had a much larger set of patterns it recognized, but with a bit of experimentation you quickly figure out what those stock patterns are. There's nothing resembling human understanding there.

On 7/7/2013 2:16 AM, John Colvin wrote:
> On Sunday, 7 July 2013 at 08:26:03 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 7/6/2013 11:11 PM, TommiT wrote:
>>>> I can see machine translation that is based on statistical correlation with a
>>>> sufficiently large corpus of human translations, but I don't see much hope for
>>>> actual understanding of non-literal speech in the foreseeable future, and I'm
>>>> actually rather glad of that.
>>>
>>> You haven't read Ray Kurzweil's latest books then or you just don't think he's
>>> right?
>>
>> Spend a little quality time with Siri. I did, and discovered it was hardly any
>> better than Eliza, which is a few lines of BASIC written in the 1970's.
>
> One word: Watson.

Ask Watson what its favorite color is.

Oh well.

On Sunday, 7 July 2013 at 10:07:51 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 7/7/2013 2:16 AM, John Colvin wrote:
>>
>> One word: Watson.
>
> Ask Watson what its favorite color is.
>
> Oh well.

That would require self-awareness. But self-awareness is not a requirement of understanding natural language as long as the speaker doesn't refer to the entity doing the understanding.

On Sunday, 7 July 2013 at 10:07:51 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 7/7/2013 2:16 AM, John Colvin wrote:
>> On Sunday, 7 July 2013 at 08:26:03 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>>> On 7/6/2013 11:11 PM, TommiT wrote:
>>>>> I can see machine translation that is based on statistical correlation with a
>>>>> sufficiently large corpus of human translations, but I don't see much hope for
>>>>> actual understanding of non-literal speech in the foreseeable future, and I'm
>>>>> actually rather glad of that.
>>>>
>>>> You haven't read Ray Kurzweil's latest books then or you just don't think he's
>>>> right?
>>>
>>> Spend a little quality time with Siri. I did, and discovered it was hardly any
>>> better than Eliza, which is a few lines of BASIC written in the 1970's.
>>
>> One word: Watson.
>
> Ask Watson what its favorite color is.
>
> Oh well.

That's asking for an awful lot more than good natural language processing.

On 7/7/13 3:07 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 7/7/2013 1:30 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> On 7/7/13 1:26 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
>>> On 7/6/2013 11:11 PM, TommiT wrote:
>>>>> I can see machine translation that is based on statistical
>>>>> correlation with a
>>>>> sufficiently large corpus of human translations, but I don't see much
>>>>> hope for
>>>>> actual understanding of non-literal speech in the foreseeable future,
>>>>> and I'm
>>>>> actually rather glad of that.
>>>>
>>>> You haven't read Ray Kurzweil's latest books then or you just don't
>>>> think he's
>>>> right?
>>>
>>> Spend a little quality time with Siri. I did, and discovered it was
>>> hardly any better than Eliza, which is a few lines of BASIC written in
>>> the 1970's.
>>
>> Ow come on.
>
> All Siri does is recognize a set of stock patterns, just like Eliza.
> Step out of that, even slightly, and it reverts to a default, again,
> just like Eliza.
>
> Of course, Siri had a much larger set of patterns it recognized, but
> with a bit of experimentation you quickly figure out what those stock
> patterns are. There's nothing resembling human understanding there.

But that applies to humans, too - they just have a much larger set of patterns they recognize. But they don't overlap perfectly for all humans. Try to ask your mailman whether a hash table is better than a singly-linked list for a symbol table.

Andrei

On 7/7/2013 8:38 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> All Siri does is recognize a set of stock patterns, just like Eliza.
>> Step out of that, even slightly, and it reverts to a default, again,
>> just like Eliza.
>>
>> Of course, Siri had a much larger set of patterns it recognized, but
>> with a bit of experimentation you quickly figure out what those stock
>> patterns are. There's nothing resembling human understanding there.
>
> But that applies to humans, too - they just have a much larger set of patterns
> they recognize.

I don't buy that. Humans don't process data like computers do.

> But they don't overlap perfectly for all humans. Try to ask your
> mailman whether a hash table is better than a singly-linked list for a symbol
> table.

A mailman can (will) also do things like pretend to know, make up a plausible answer, ask clarifying questions, figure it out, etc.

Computers don't, for example, figure it out. They do not reason. Regex is not a thought process.

On 7/7/2013 5:41 AM, John Colvin wrote:
> On Sunday, 7 July 2013 at 10:07:51 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> Ask Watson what its favorite color is.
>>
>> Oh well.
>
> That's asking for an awful lot more than good natural language processing.

Is it? Yes, that's a serious question. I don't presume that human language is something independent from our self-awareness.