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From: kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: An idea...
Message-ID: <701@hounx.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Mar-86 08:47:56 EST
Article-I.D.: hounx.701
Posted: Sun Mar 16 08:47:56 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Mar-86 04:12:51 EST
References: <2008@hao.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 29

Bill Roberts invites a discussion of modeling human feelings
in a computer.

I have been toying with a speculative theory on this topic.

If you put into a computer an input stream which is syntactically
parsible and semantically meaningful, the computer invokes the
appropriate procedures to process the input and produce the
desired and anticipated output.  But what happens if the input
doesn't parse, isn't meaningful, or requires processing by a
procedure not resident in the addressed machine?  Well, the
computer issues a diagnostice message, which is at times cryptic,
imparsible, and irritating to the human user.  That is, the
human gave the computer an unwanted input, and got back an
unwanted output.  Now that scenario is very much like an
emotional interchange between two people.  That is, there
is an interesting analogy between diagnostic messages and
emotional reactions. The computer doesn't know what to make
of the input, and the human doesn't know what to make of the
diagnostic output.  In their mutual ignorance, both parties are stuck
with an unsolved problem.  At least one party has some learning to do.
Can you detect the underlying symmetry of the situation?

If the above paragraph has piqued your interest, I would be interested
in unfolding more ideas along these lines.  It helps me if you pose
a few questions that are uppermost in your mind.  Then I can take
as a goal the discovery of interesting and practical answers to them.

--Barry Kort   ...ihnp4!hounx!kort