FourLetterWords
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Four Letter Words robot plays word association, swears quite a bit (video)
If you know us, you know how much we love our swear words -- the basis of which, of course, is the old fashioned "four letter word." Artist Rob Seward must feel the same way -- he's actually gone so far as to build a robot that can assemble letters out of fluorescent lights, displaying English language words up to four characters long. Drawing on a word association database developed at the University of South Florida, an algorithm is used to display a never-ending series of words for bemused viewers. Not all the words are "blue," mind you, but the thing does trend that way, as determined "by a variety of language and perception studies, especially Elliot McGinnies's 1949 study 'Emotionality and Perceptual Defense'" (you know the one). Check the thing out in action after the break, and then be sure to hit up the source link for info on this and the artist's other work.
