Robert wrote:
Let's assume also that you entered in the conversation only at the end "John gave the man his hat"....many people do it, it's called eavesdropping, human nature to be curious. The question is, do you just walk away only knowing the resolution to a story without the climax? Do you pick up a book only to read the last page?
Just like humans, computers would need to ask questions to further understand situations of ambiguity.
This is true .. an AI in conversation could ask you questions to help resolve ambiguity.
But this seems to me an interesting difference between classical computer 'programs' and human thought. There are a lot of situations where you simply cannot ask these questions and resolve the ambiguity (or at least, not immediately).
A computer traditionally tends to be programmed with a definite set of instructions, where there is no ambiguity.
e.g. Instead of saying
'The man walked down the street'
a 'computer-type' sentence would be:
Man 249223 walked down street 394443.
The computer program would want to know precisely which man it was and which street. Was it the same man who did such and such a week earlier?
In natural language on the other hand, the whole system is geared around being able to deal with ambiguity .. delayed resolution.
An example would be a 'who done it' murder book. The whole book could be written, to be resolved in the final pages of the final chapter, where we find out who the killer was. And it is in this resolution we would fit together all the pieces of the story, like a jigsaw, and it all makes sense.
The same could be true of a scientist researching a problem. They investigate different aspects of the problem, and find little bits of truth and hypotheses that 'work', without necessarily understanding why. Then at a later point, there may come a time where a key fact is learned or reasoned, that suddenly resolves the previous ambiguities ... a 'eureka' moment if you will.
No comments:
Post a Comment