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

[Simon Batistoni]

On 12/03/02 14:11 +0100, Arvid Gidhagen wrote:
> 
> > http://www.itri.bton.ac.uk/projects/euromap/developers.html
> 
> > resources for people involved in Human Language Technology (HLT)
> 
> > I am using "IA" pretty loosely here - sorry if I'm basically 
> > wrong. I'm probably talking more about things which are HCI-related
> 
> Well...
> Machine translation, speech applications, knowledge management, 
> language technology in general - to me this is not IA, not HCI, it's
> actually AI. 

But surely it's AI which is turned specifically towards improving the
interface between the computer and the human, and the ways in which the
computer organises and presents information. As such, it should be of
deep interest to people whose responsibilities lie in one way or another
with the architecture of information, or of interfaces :)

Speech technology may sound wonderful, but as Celia said regarding Wildfire
last week (I killed the stupid cow stone dead for the same reasons), do we
want to talk to our machines? Is it desirable, or are there other, better
methods of interaction?

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"?

> Interesting to note that it's now sneaking in without
> overtly calling itself "artificial intelligence" - possibly the
> expression either has stupid connotations now or in any case makes
> people expect too much intelligence.

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.

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.

-- 
"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