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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!hou5h!hou5g!hou5f!hou5e!hou5d!mat
From: mat@hou5d.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: The Halting Problem
Message-ID: <725@hou5d.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 31-Oct-83 23:03:21 EST
Article-I.D.: hou5d.725
Posted: Mon Oct 31 23:03:21 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 3-Nov-83 08:53:32 EST
References: <766@utastro.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 22


	A common characteristic of humans that is not shared by the machines
	we build and the programs we write is called "boredom."  All of us get
	bored running around the same loop again and again, especially if
	nothing is seen to change in the process.  We get bored and quit.

		 *--->    WARNING!!!   <---*

	If we teach our programs to get bored, we will have solved the
	infinite-looping problem, but we will lose our electronic slaves who now
	work, uncomplainingly, on the same tedious jobs day in and day out.  I'm
	not sure it's worth the price.

Hmm.  I don't usually try to play in this league, but it seems to me that there
is a place for everything and every talent.  Build one machine that gets bored
(in a controlled way, please) to work on Fermat's last Theorem.  Build another
that doesn't to check tolerances on camshafts or weld hulls.  This isn't like
destroying one's virginity, you know.

						Mark Terribile
						Duke Of deNet