Xref: utzoo comp.music:1327 comp.ai:6911 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bu.edu!husc6!brauer!elkies From: elkies@brauer.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies) Newsgroups: comp.music,comp.ai Subject: Re: AI joke [Re: Blackbored] Message-ID: <3061@husc6.harvard.edu> Date: 26 May 90 19:17:27 GMT References: <16695@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <13647@venera.isi.edu> Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu Reply-To: elkies@brauer.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies) Organization: Harvard Math Department Lines: 13 In article <13647@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes: >There is a standard joke about AI results: >each is a solution in search of the right problem. Actually in some disciplines (mine included) it's perfectly respectable to first invent a neat solution and then look for a problem to apply it to; this is one good way to do a dissertation, bypassing some of the agonizing process of finding a research problem, and occasionally yields unexpected and important new results. --Noam D. Elkies (elkies@zariski.harvard.edu) Department of Mathematics, Harvard University