daniel bigham.ca

danielbigham.ca now supports rss
July 29, 2008

After long last, I set up rss for my website. Each blog topic represents its own 'feed' which can be subscribed to with any modern browser or RSS reader.

I don't use rss much myself because most of the website that I check on a daily basis are such that I want to see the stories surrounded by the layout of the website, and they are updated frequently enough that I don't want to be notified each time something new is posted.

I guess where I should use rss is to keep tabs on sites that only update once every few days and I want a notification to go look for the new content.

AI and search engines
July 26, 2008

One of the most sensible uses of an AI that can read information, update a data structure to reflect that information, and then answer questions about that information, is a search engine. In fact, that's exactly what a search engine is, the difference being that today the internal representation that search engines use doesn't contain much meaning.

What this brings to mind is that the Internet is an important aspect of AI: It serves as the raw knowledge base for an AI to read to learn about the world. Now, this has some serious limitations given that anyone can write whatever they want on the 'Net, but overall I think the Internet will serve as one of the primary means for AI's learning about the world.

Let's fast forward into the future and ask Google some questions that will test its understanding of the world:

Search: What is Bill Clinton's birthday?
Answer: August 19, 1946

Search: What year did World War II end?
Answer: 1945

Search: What month comes after November?
Answer: December

Search: How many feet are there in a yard?
Answer: 3

Search: What day of the week was it when man first landed on the moon?
Answer: ...

Has AI delivered?
July 8, 2008

Here's a good article that talks about the lofty promises of AI, which go back as far as the 50s, and have yet to materialize. The article also gives some examples of recent AI successes. One of summary points is that the classical definition of AI isn't where most of the progress is being made. Rather, it is in specialized system.

A rather astonishing figure is that Microsoft Research employs nearly 1,000 PhDs that are actively working in the field of AI. Wow. That's about a factor of 10 larger than I would have guessed.

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