Xref: utzoo comp.ai:3313 talk.religion.misc:10967
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!uccba!uceng!dmocsny
From: dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Elementary AI Philosophy
Summary: An important point.
Keywords: Understanding and Comprehension, Reality and Modeling, Sentience
Message-ID: <654@uceng.UC.EDU>
Date: 4 Feb 89 16:30:41 GMT
References: <18464@santra.UUCP> <1241@arctic.nprdc.arpa> <904@ubu.warwick.UUCP> <44236@linus.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati, College of Engg.
Lines: 34

Here I am enjoying the vivid intellectual scenery in yet another Barry Kort
article, and Lo! He throws in an aside that echoes my very thoughts.

In article <44236@linus.UUCP>, bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) writes:
> ... computers are having just as hard a
> time understanding English as people are.  Except that computers
> are more honest about disclosing their confusion.

Yes! And this sentence is pregnant with potential for large increases
in scientific productivity. How? Writing is a major (if not the
primary) avenue for scientific communication. A distressing fraction
of the scientific literature displays much more than the necessary
level of semantic complexity. This complicates the task of the reader,
lowering scientific productivity across the board, and making our jobs
less fun. This happens because the technical community learns to write
largely by reading itself. We develop a writing style from tradition,
and not by understanding of how to best render facts for easy
comprehension. (See John Brogan, _Clear Technical Writing_,
McGraw-Hill, 197x, where x is a small positivie integer).

Computers lack the fantastic wetware that lets us (sort of) cut
through semantic noise. Thus computers will force us to write more
clearly, and we will benefit. Like the child who could not see the
Emperor's new clothes, our computers will tell us when we are
ambiguous, when we add nonessential words, when our sentence structure
is too complex, and how to better say what we are really trying to
say.

> --Barry Kort

Dan Mocsny
dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu

A discipline is mature when it makes sense to a computer.