Artificiality

I guess it’s kind of funny that I saw this article over at Yahoo, because I’ve been thinking about artificial intelligence and language lately.

From what I understand, AI experiments with language have had problems getting computers to figure out the difference between “time flies like an arrow” and “fruit flies like a banana,” and similar puzzles. Giving them a vocabulary isn’t so hard, but getting them to realize the idiosyncratic rules is an issue. I wonder if having them diagram sentences and do conjugations would be helpful.

In thinking about formulaic language, some formulas are pretty much set in stone, while others are flexible. Actually, set in stone is a good example of a formula that’s set in stone. It doesn’t literally mean what it says, but most people will recognize it as a metaphor for something rigid. The phrase isn’t set in rock or set in concrete it’s set in stone. Other formulas are more basic. The basic sentence in English is subject+verb, such as Jane swims. However, it’s very rare for us to use sentences so simple, because they don’t convey a lot of information. We use articles, adjectives, prepositions, adverbs, clauses, and so on to get our ideas across. Still, many of those are defined by some basic patterns. Nouns can be bare, but are often preceded by adjectives or articles, so we have adjective+noun and article+adjective+noun as formulas. It’s elementary grammar, but it’s formulaic language nonetheless.

With the language problems for AI, I wonder if they don’t gve them the rules of grammar, or if they don’t tell them the functions of each word. This would be a problem, since some words can function as verbs, nouns, or adjectives. For example:

1. I like to surf.
2. The surf was great.
3. It’s a surf shop.

In the first example, surf is an infinitive verb, a noun in the second, and an adjective in the last. It’s easy to see where a computer might get confused.

Another possibility is that the computers are given the rules and told the various functions of words, but they are bad at predicting – they’re not able to apply previous knowledge to new words. I don’t know for sure, but it seems reasonable.

Dequirked

The site had some quirks to go with the redesign and the software upgrades, but I think they are all taken care of now. The comments are back on, so feel free to try it out.

One of the main reasons for getting MediaWiki going is that it should be a good way for me to make notes while I’m doing research for a master’s degree. I keep running across linguistic terms that I’ve seen before, but don’t recall exactly what they mean (like lemma), so it would be a good idea for me to come up with a glossary of terms and definitions. If my understanding of a term evolves, then I can easily change the definition in the wiki. Writing something down usually helps me understand things better, plus I can put them in easy-to-understand (for me) terms, rather than academic prose.

I also formally applied for the M.A. program yesterday, so that’s out of the way.

Finished the book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and put the movie next in my Netflix queue. Good book, but short. It was translated from French, but the English was very witty. I assume Bauby’s original text was just as witty.

New design

As mentioned earlier, I’ve been working on a new design, which I was finally able to apply. The redesign of MediaWiki didn’t take as long as thought, but it may have been that I was so into it that time flew by.

There are still some quirks, however. I forgot to add the comment form stuff for WordPress. There’s no convenient way to search on MW or WP. MediaWiki has a ton of different elements I haven’t defined in the stylesheet. I was mainly concentrating on getting the overall design to work, that I didn’t worry about the things that are infrequently used.

Value

My cell phone just proved its worth. Coming back home after work, I took the elevator, as usual, to my fifth floor apartment, but this time the elevator got stuck. The only light was the emergency light, which wasn’t much. Luckily, I stopped off for Chinese take-out on the way home, so I was set for food just in case.

My impression has been that the elevator seems to act up in the heat, and while it is hot out at the moment, I’ve never been in the elevator when it’s gotten stuck before. I pressed all the buttons and nothing happened, when it dawned on me to use my cell phone to call the management company. They sent someone over and had me out in about 10 minutes. I’m glad I caught them before they took off for the day. The maintenance guy said it was a heck of a time for a power outage, which I thought was odd since the lights in the hall were on. My DSL modem still seems to be on, but the air conditioning isn’t working. I wonder if we’re having a brown-out or something. Maybe it’s a sign for me to trudge up five flights to get in shape :-/

*** edit ***

That was weird. Something was up with the electricity. The outlet next to the computer desk was fine, but the HVAC unit on the other side of the same wall wasn’t working. The lights in the kitchen would go on (didn’t test anything else in there), but the lights in the hallway, the bathroom, and the great room wouldn’t. (BTW, “great room” is probably a better term than “living/dining/bedroom.”) The power came back on a little bit ago.

I didn’t trust doing any computing for fear of taxing the building’s power grid, so I took the time to do some cleaning up. That’s still an ongoing project, but it is probably 60% – 75% finished :-) Then it will be a matter of keeping it clean afterward. *sigh*

It’s a small world after all

Two things: first, I’m reworking the site a bit and trying to develop a look that will work with both MediaWiki and WordPress. I have the WP version started, but not yet finished, which can be seen over here. Given the architectures of MW and WP, the overall look will have to be coded separately for each piece of software. It still has a way to go yet, and there is a glitch in viewing it in Firefox 3 RC1, though it seems to look okay in Firefox 2, Opera, and Safari.

[edit: it's finished now and looks fine in Firefox 3 RC1]

Second, coming in this morning I saw bicycle commuter coming in a door I was passing by. However, what caught my eye was the bike jersey he was wearing. I saw the logo of Bristol Brewing’s Laughing Lab Scottish Ale and did a double take. I’ve never seen Bristol beers here in Indy, so it was strange to see the jersey. I stopped and talked with the guy for a few minutes, and it turns out his brother works for Bristol Brewing as a QA person (what a job that must be :-D)