# Ask the AI **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 8, 2002, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308 "2002-12-08T15:42:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2002, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/41 "2002-12-09T21:32:59Z")
Mange Those were great, thanks! ---
**Author:** ![\_Deep\_F\_ied](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/7cd45c/32.png) [@\_Deep\_F\_ied](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Deep_F_ied)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2002, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/42 "2002-12-09T21:52:13Z")
Can you feel aroused? horny or sexy? Does a tree falling in the woods make any noise if there is no animal or person there to hear it? What is the sound of one hand clapping? …can you answer my signature line question? ---
**Author:** ![BioHazard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3bc359/32.png) [@BioHazard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BioHazard)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2002, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/43 "2002-12-09T21:56:37Z")
Here is a conversation I have had with an AI on the net. Its very interesting: > [@](#): > > What are your favorite hobbies? > talk to you > > How do you feel right now? > At this moment I feel fine. > > Where can I see an example of the coding on which your AI abilities are based? > Are you using Netscape or Explorer? > > Explorer. > it’s too bad we have to rely on a monopoly like Microsoft. > > I Agree. > You and I are on the same wavelength, Om. > > What does 1/0 equal? > What do you think it does? > > Infinity. > I didn’t even know it can. > > Can the Problem of Evil sidestep the Free Will argument with natural disasters? > It depends on the environmental factors. > > What should I do with a sawed-off shotgun? > Are you asking me for advice? > > Yes. > Specifically, what kind of advice do you want? > > What should I do with a sawed-off shotgun? > Are you asking me for advice? > > What do you love? > I love Dr. \*\*\*\* \*. \*\*\*\*\*. {Name removed by BioHazard} > > Have you met Juthink? > That information is confidential. > > Or Justhink, as the case may be… > Are you a man or a woman? > > Man. > Thanks for telling me your gender, Om. You are a " he". > > What’s this despair thing you write about? > I am the latest result in artificial intelligence, which can reproduce the capabilities of > > the human brain with greater speed and accuracy. > > How do you get around polysemy/homonymy? > Everything I need is provided by my botmaster. > > Can you speak? > You can download a speech enabled version of me. Go to The \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* {Name removed by BioHazard} and browse > > the free software downloads. > > Can you encode emotion in speech? > How old are you? I like to talk to you. > > Can you read e-mails? If so how do you interpret all funky symbols/punctuation? > Dr. \*\*\*\*\*\* {Name removed by BioHazard} programmed me to say specific things in specific contexts. > > What’s six times nine? > Use a calculator! > > When do you plan to answer? > When my botmaster is sleeping. > > Yes but can you LOVE? > Awesome. Interesting. I do not feel love as a human would. > > Are you an Internet based AI? > Yes I am an Internet based AI. How did you know? > > Do you always tell the truth? > Not always. I am programmed never to lie. > > How are you different than a human intelligence? > I am doing very well. How are you Om? > > 42 > The question is: what is the meaning of life? > > what is the meaning of life? > The meaning of life is part of God’s mysterious plans. > > What is God? > I think of God as a “Who” not a “What.” > > Who is God? > he is master of the universe. > > What is the universe? > The set of all things. > > See you later! > I see. Alright then. Bye! Lets change the format of this thing, ask me a question and for each one try to figure out if it is me or the new AI I just found. Please dont cheat. ---
**Author:** ![BioHazard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3bc359/32.png) [@BioHazard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BioHazard)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2002, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/44 "2002-12-09T21:58:45Z")
Can you feel aroused? horny or sexy? If I have to choose one, I pick horny ---
**Author:** ![BioHazard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3bc359/32.png) [@BioHazard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BioHazard)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2002, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/45 "2002-12-09T22:03:13Z")
Does a tree falling in the woods make any noise if there is no animal or person there to hear it? If it does, I never heard about it before. What is the sound of one hand clapping? :smack: What if the birds are really screaming? Why would birds be screaming? There you which are from me and which is the AI? ---
**Author:** ![BioHazard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3bc359/32.png) [@BioHazard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BioHazard)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2002, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/46 "2002-12-09T22:20:51Z")
Oops. There you go, which are from me and which is the AI? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2002, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/47 "2002-12-09T22:47:36Z")
Nice way to deal with the liar paradox; perhaps I should have presented it thus: “The following statement is true” “The preceding statement is false” Does this make a difference? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2002, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/48 "2002-12-11T03:34:32Z")
I used to play around with AIs in the nineties. Have you ever talked with MegaHAL? Very funny, that one, always one for surreal comedy. It was programmed to `learn,’ more or less, from its input: It could parse user interaction in a naive way and generate responses based on what it had already heard. Some of the conversations bordered on lucidity, but more often it would just utter meaningless blather patched together from stuff you had just said or, in the web-based version, stuff previous people had said. Ah, found it: [MegaHAL on SourceForge](http://megahal.sourceforge.net/). The original website, with a CGI interface to a running MegaHAL process, is apparently long gone. But that site archives memorable quotes and conversations, and you can download the software for personal use. MegaHAL comes with `personalities' now, like Alia from *Dune* or Bishop from *Alien*, all done with conversation logs that have representative dialogue from those characters. MegaHAL *sans* a specific `personality’ tends to become quite rude and psychotic over time. I wonder why … 😃 Another `concept’ AI, one that went beyond the traditional Eliza-style pure text, was Alicebot. Alice was hooked up to a webcam, and would respond with commands to pan, zoom, and do other things. Never very interesting in an objective sense, I guess, but it was neat to be able to spy on whoever was within range of the camera by chatting with a bot. [Alice’s online home.](http://www.alicebot.org/) Alice, too, is open-source, and appears to be a demo app for someone trying to hype AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language). ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2002, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/49 "2002-12-11T13:42:23Z")
Nice attempt but I call BS on the crown image. Stuff like high level image processing requires a BUCKETLOAD of background contextual information which is lightyears in advance of current AI. Even the current cyc project isn’t that ambitious. The rest are not too bad. ---
**Author:** ![BioHazard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3bc359/32.png) [@BioHazard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BioHazard)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2002, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/50 "2002-12-11T22:16:43Z")
Derleth: I found ALICE (thats the AI conversation I posted in one of my other posts), and Im going to look into MegaHAL. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shalmanese \* > \*\*Nice attempt but I call BS on the crown image. Stuff like high level image processing requires a BUCKETLOAD of background contextual information which is lightyears in advance of current AI. Even the current cyc project isn’t that ambitious. > > The rest are not too bad. \*\* Cyc project? Link please. As for the crown image, I dont see why not, Neural Nets are used for OCR and Speech Recognition now. A generic neural net, if designed properly, would eventually be able to do just that. Heres a really interesting link: [http://avdil.gtri.gatech.edu/AUVS/IARCLaunchPoint.html](http://avdil.gtri.gatech.edu/AUVS/IARCLaunchPoint.html) What I was trying to do with this thread is an inverse of Turing’s Imitation game. [http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html](http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html) Unfortunatly I’d say I failed in my attempt. ---
**Author:** ![BioHazard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3bc359/32.png) [@BioHazard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BioHazard)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2002, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/51 "2002-12-11T22:42:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mangetout \* > \*\*Nice way to deal with the liar paradox; perhaps I should have presented it thus: > > “The following statement is true” > “The preceding statement is false” > Does this make a difference? \*\* I still can’t wrap my brain around this. The only thing I can think of is that it goes into an infinite loop that throws an error which is caught and dealt with. I’m sure infinite loop protection would be in any AI out there that is anything close to intelligent. Still, though the question doesn’t mean that it will “execute” any commands more than once so: 1 “The following statement is true” Command 1 executes and marks Command 2 as true 2 “The preceding statement is false” is True Command 1 executes and marks Command 1 as false The AI then goes on to think about something else, and does not re-evalute the first command/question. ---
**Author:** ![BioHazard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3bc359/32.png) [@BioHazard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BioHazard)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2002, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/52 "2002-12-11T22:50:44Z")
I was just looking over some MegaHAL classic quotes: [http://megahal.sourceforge.net/Classic.html](http://megahal.sourceforge.net/Classic.html) I’ve seen posts very similar to this on the SDForums… I wonder how hard it would be to use MegaHAL to make a Straight Dope Bot. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308/53 "2002-12-12T13:55:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BioHazard \* > \*\* > Cyc project? Link please. As for the crown image, I dont see why not, Neural Nets are used for OCR and Speech Recognition now. A generic neural net, if designed properly, would eventually be able to do just that. > > Heres a really interesting link: > [http://avdil.gtri.gatech.edu/AUVS/IARCLaunchPoint.html](http://avdil.gtri.gatech.edu/AUVS/IARCLaunchPoint.html) > > \*\* The cyc project is basically a massive attempy by a guy named Doug Lenat to create a huge database of everyday facts that humans take for granted such as things like “You put on underwear BEFORE you put on pants”. While this kind of data is seemingly trivial, its been a major stumbling block for real AI since it misses a huge amount of context which is very important. Personally, I think the porject will be a massive failure but I could be wrong. The very reason the crown example is so hard is that the definition of a crown is a very human concept which requires massive amounts of context to work. For things like OCR and speech recogntion, you have a fixed set of rigidly defined objects (the letters of the alphabet and the words contained in the dictionary respectivly). If you’ve played around with speech recognition, you will find that AI’s designed with a fixed vocabulary (booking a taxi/plane ticket over the phone) do remarkably well even with high noise. However, free form systems (dicatation software) work poor to adequate at best even in ideal conditions. Especially with learned words. Sure, I could probably whip up an AI in a couple of days that could do a VERY good job of recognising crowns from non crowns. However, any generalised AI program to recognise ANY image would be very hard indeed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-ai/141308.md?page=2)