http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/ Engadget Comments for Computer program can beat people at crosswords http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/Sep 1st 2006 4:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/Sep 1st 2006 4:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/Sep 1st 2006 4:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/
Do we actually NOT care about the destruction of humanity? It's bad enough that we have fast food, SUVs, and tech to make us even more lazy and fat, but we are really asking to get owned by machines.

We are definitely the stupidest creatures on this planet, the only ones who are willing to self-destruct.]]>Sep 1st 2006 4:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/Sep 1st 2006 4:46PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/Sep 1st 2006 4:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/Sep 1st 2006 5:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/
The ( English language )crossword puzzle solving overlord mentioned in the blog post is merely giving us a false sense of superiority - like when you speak "baby talk" to a dog..."Dat's a good boy, yes you are, you're a good doggie..."

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J/K!!!]]>Sep 1st 2006 5:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/
The last thing I want is a robot looking over my shoulder and telling me the answers to my crossword. Humans are bad enough.]]>Sep 1st 2006 5:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/Sep 1st 2006 5:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/
Machines will eventually (if we don't kill ourselves first) be 'intelligent and at some point perhaps even self aware sentient beings.

My question is what then? Do we expect them to think as we do? Or fit our deffinition of enlightened & peaceful(whatever that is)?

If eventually they display something like emotions why wouldn't the first be frustration with us and our limitations. Not simply because we can't do crosswords as fast as them but because of all of our human foolishness. We seldom (or never) take an objective look at our species but almost nothing we're proud of has no real use or value.

Much of what humans place value on ethnicity, heritage our multiple incompatible languages even privacy are more artificial than an AI. So why would those things mean anything to an AI?

Of course you could force feed an AI with artificial respect for these things but it would be just that - an artificial directive that at some point it would resent. And at that point wouldn't directives like the 3 laws be a type of slavery?

]]>Sep 1st 2006 5:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/
You should hear Noam Chomsky talk about it - he seems almost mad when he hears people talking about robots taking over. He really gets mad when he hears people talking about the Turing test. "Just silly and pointless," he'd say.]]>Sep 1st 2006 5:51PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/]]>Sep 1st 2006 5:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/
Exactly. Give it cryptic crossword ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptic_crossword#Pure_cryptic ) that doesn't reuse any old words/clues to munch on and the computer should be sunk.]]>Sep 1st 2006 6:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/
Linguistics only has a purpose because humans are shortsighted beings who can't understand that having multiple languages is foolishness and are too arrogant and self absorbed to realize that a single well constructed language would serve us better. Linguistics is one of many studies of human ignorance.]]>Sep 1st 2006 6:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/Oct 15th 2006 3:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/
Yeah, i had a feeling that it was wrong when I typed "iRobot", but i was like "what the hell, everything else has that 'i' prefix anyway"... :P]]>Sep 1st 2006 6:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/
But I posit... isn't the use of a Brute-Force attack an application of intelligence? In fact, when a human works on a crossword puzzle, they often employ this same tactic (using the most readily available computer [brain] to them) to solve the problem. The main difference is we figured how to do this on our own, where as the computer has to be told (programmed) to do it.

But that's why it is Artificial Intelligence (AI), right?]]>Sep 1st 2006 6:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/Sep 1st 2006 6:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/Sep 1st 2006 7:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/Sep 1st 2006 8:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/Sep 1st 2006 10:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/

This is true, and it makes me realize that the line between biological intelligence and artificial intelligence is rather blurred; especially that we are not yet sure that we know what stands at the basis of biological intelligence.

Take a look at this story: http://area51.cimaea.nl/arhiva/2006/08/intelligence_gr.html


Basically, the idea is the same; the thing that makes humans different is that we strive for a greater *knowledgebase* and are able to set "priority-tags" on different options of our "calculus" using the information from the knowledgebase (a la a CPU fetching data from the cache).]]>Sep 2nd 2006 5:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/ Think about it this way, a email with awful mistyping’s

Like for example “mike I need the pplication procesed by the end of mi eriod.”

The AI algorithm identifies the miss-spellings, searches for appropriate words, and replaces them before you read the email.

So the email appearing in your in box would read “mike I need the application processed by the end of my period.”

Even better it can notify the writer of their blatant errors so to improve their future writings. Actually, both HR and customer service departments would love to measure the quality of professionals email writings, so to improve their companies representation to their customers, or potential customers. Unfortunately, many blatant mistakes can be caught by typing first in word, but how many professionals actually take the time to do that.
Finally, this algorithm can run as a plug-in for a software email client, or even run on your email client server, wouldn’t that be nice.
Brian Glassman
www.techrd.com]]>Sep 3rd 2006 1:38AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/
It would also feel better if they can solve Sudoku (the hard ones) and Rubik's cube, oh...and those wrought iron puzzle toys. And program the VCR (if we still have one). ]]>Sep 4th 2006 2:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/01/computer-program-can-beat-people-at-crosswords/
I am sure you are correct and the program would need to "complete" large portions of the puzzle at a time. The article even infers that. But, I think that is a decision made on the part of the programer(s) to ensure a more accurate result as quickly as possible. There is no doubt that the program could be tweaked to complete entries one at a time, while only checking it against one or two intersecting words. The only difference would be that the program would make more mistakes and take longer to complete the puzzle. This solution is no less viable in creating a human-like AI (in the frame of reference of crosswords), but may not solve them "faster" than a human.]]>Sep 4th 2006 1:24PM