Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
and that he would gladly sign it at the defense. They shook hands
in Hart's book-lined office. Hart's eyes were bright and trustful,
and his bearing paternal. “See you at 3 p.m. on the tenth, then,
Dave!” Hart said.
At the defense, Dave eloquently summarized Chapter 3 of his dis-
sertation. His plan had been to do the same for Chapter 4, and
then wrap things up, but now he wasn't sure. The pallid faces be-
fore him seemed suddenly nauseating. What was he doing?
One of these pallid automata had an arm raised. “What?” Striver
snapped. Striver watched ghosts look at each other. A pause. Then
Professor Teer spoke: “I'm puzzled as to why you prefer not to use
the well-known alpha-beta minimax algorithm for your search?”
Why had he thought so earnestly about inane questions like this in
the past? Stiver said nothing. His nausea grew. Contempt, fiery
and uncontrollable, rose up.
“Dave?” Professor Hart prodded, softly. God, they were pitiful.
Pitiful, pallid, and puny.
“Dave, did you hear the question?”
Later, Striver sat alone in his apartment. What in God's name had
he done? [7]
Bringsjord believes that in order to extend his team's work to produce
truly compelling stories, the program will have to be developed to un-
derstand the “inner lives” of its characters. To do this, he argues, it will
need to have awareness of a kind that, he believes, no machine will ever
possess, to
...think experientially about a trip to Europe as a kid, remem-
ber what it was like to be in Paris on a sunny day with an older
brother, smash a drive down a fairway, feel a lover's touch, ski on
theedge,....[7]
Here Bringsjord is echoing sentiments enunciated by Douglas Hofstad-
ter, 14 but to me the assumption that a machine will never be able to think
in this way seems unnecessarily pessimistic. While Chopin and Mozart
were undoubtedly inspired by such awareness, David Cope's program
EMI 15 does not need to have this type of awareness in order to compose
music in the style of Chopin or Mozart, so why should such awareness
be essential for literary creativity?
14 See the section “David Cope” later in this chapter.
15 See the section “David Cope” later in this chapter.
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