Re: virus: Random Chance

zaimoni@ksu.edu
Fri, 1 Nov 1996 09:08:47 -0600 (CST)


On Mon, 30 Sep 1996, David Leeper wrote:

> Tad,
>
> : Your translation of Kenneth Boyd is great:
> :
> : >English Translation:
> : >Engineers are now using concepts of Evolution to write computer programs
> : >and build machines. These methods seems promising.
> :
> : Seriously, I had no idea that Ken was talking about it. It reminded me of
> : Richard Feynman (in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!") who translated:
> :
> : "The individual member of the social community often receives his
> : information via visual, symbolic channels" into
> :
> : "People read".
>
> Glad I could help. Here's the translation for a few other terms I've
> seen pop up from time to time:
>
> Strong AI: Artificial Intelligence programs designed to solve a specific
> problem.
> Weak AI: Artificial Intelligence programs designed to solve general
> types of problems.
>
> Sounds kinda backwards, huh? But that's what the terms mean.

It's a convention clash from mathematical literature. One school of
authors wants to use "strong" for strong [limiting] hypotheses, as above;
the other wants to use "strong" for strong [wide-scope] conclusions,
which necessarily have less-restrictive hypotheses.

Some of my texts give up and say, "we're not going to use this
distinction, and be very careful about it when you do see it."

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/ Towards the conversion of data into information....
/
/ Kenneth Boyd
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