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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: Top Ten MIST Items #2
Message-ID: <jqbDuznD3.Hp0@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <31EDBF21.5FF7@clickable.com> <jqbDuryLK.134@netcom.com> <31F40B9A.B7A@clickable.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 08:53:27 GMT
Lines: 84
Sender: jqb@netcom23.netcom.com
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai:40115 comp.ai.philosophy:44476

In article <31F40B9A.B7A@clickable.com>,
Christopher McKinstry  <chris@clickable.com> wrote:
>Jim Balter wrote:
>> 
>> In article <31EDBF21.5FF7@clickable.com>,
>> Christopher McKinstry  <chris@clickable.com> wrote:
>> >Top Ten MIST Items for this week are:
>> [...]
>> >8: greyhound@pop.com
>> >- Do you have skin?:True
>> 
>> You really have to admire the quality of this project.
>> --
>> <J Q B>
>
>
>Jim: Do you have skin? yes of course. any system that trying to emulate
>a human must answer yes to that question. It's questions like these
>that are unanswerable by all existing systems today.
>
>That item is of high quality, and very valuable. It is part of being 
>human. 

  Imagine a simple database with millions of 'stimulus/response' pairs; where
  each stimulus would be a statement of consensus fact, such as 'The day time
  sky is usually blue.', and where each response could only be 'true' or
  'false'.

	-- http://www.clickable.com/toc.html

For some of us, "Do you have skin?" does not appear to be "a statement of
consensus fact".

Here are my contributions for the day:

A question is not a statement.:True

Bob Dole is too old to be president.:True

(The consensus is that) The world was thought to be flat at the time of
    Columbus.:True

The world was thought to be flat at the time of Columbus.:False

Consensus is not the same as fact.:True

I don't want to be president.:True

Consensus statements must not contain personal pronouns.:True

Murder is wrong.:True

Murder isn't alway wrong.:True

All batchelors are unmarried.:True

O.J. killed Nicole.:True

MIST fails to make distinctions, e.g. between different levels of
     confidence.:True

A program built around the MIST database would do well on a test drawn from
    that database.:True

No other program would do well for the wildly foreseeable future, and the
    program mentioned would not do well on any other MIST-type test due to the
    vast number of possible statements.:True

Neither this statement nor the one above is a MIST-type statement.:True

MIST does not capture the vast majority of our understanding of knowledge
   representation or cognition.:True

MIST cannot play chess within the physical resource limits of the
   universe.:True

MIST is of little or no interest to those involved in AI research.:True

Jim Balter thinks MIST is a waste of time, and is probably a PR gimmick.:True

Are we having fun yet?:False
-- 
<J Q B>

