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June 30, 2005

Wired's AI is Weak

I really ought to know better than to expect sensible commentary on computer science from Wired, but their The Other Turing Test article crossed the line of agitation for me. I'm fine with them deciding to recount a project by some undergraduates to replicate the male/female imitation game scenario in the Turing Test, and adding ALICE into the mix is interesting, though I think it misreads Turing's intention to say that the computer has to pretend to be female, as compared to just human. But to say: "Scientists studying artificial intelligence have long argued over the meaning of this gender-bending experiment" is just too much. If one reads Turing's paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence proposing the imitation game, one sees in the last paragraph of section 1 that the Turing Test poses the question of whether, when a person and computer play the imitation game, "Will the interrogator decide wrongly as often when the game is played like this as he does when the game is played between a man and a woman?"(emphasis mine) In other words, Turing is saying that computers do not have to be able to pass as more human than a human 100% of the time, or even 50% of the time. They just have to be as good at passing as something they are not as often as people are.


Now, there can be much interesting discussion of why Turing chose an all-human imitation baseline of determining gender as compared to other possible discriminators. But the gendered imitation game has a clear role in defining success in the imitation game. If it has been "ignored", it is because there is little point in calculating the baseline before artificial intelligence programs realistically capable of passing the Turing Test exist. I'm not sure what an academic publication on the gendered version would really conribute to the field, anyway. And that is clearly the definition of "ignored" they are using, because many people (myself included) have held classroom versions of the gendered imitation game with our students.

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June 29, 2005

Narbonic

A friend pointed me to the cartoon Narbonic, whose archives are open for free this week, and suggested that I check it out starting from the beginning. I'm going to lose the rest of the afternoon to the archives. I knew I was hooked when I hit the week (probably a couple of months in) where the evil scientist Helen Narbon is being pursued by ANTONIO SMITH, FORENSIC LINGUIST for abuse of language in her manifesto. How can you resist a strip with lines like "11:33 AM, Eastern Standard. Once again I find myself scaling the face of a building, in pursuit of a mad scientist bent on world domination. And I've got the relevant text to prove it.", from Smith, or on the part of Narbon, "You never think you'll get a hero, and when you do the place is a mess. I'm going to scrub the toilet." Hee! Thanks for the pointer, E!

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June 21, 2005

Top Children's Lit

Ah - I saw Cheeky Prof do this and it looked fun. Which of the National Education Association's Top 100 Books for Kids according to parents and teachers (as compared to according to kids) have you read? I've read the ones in bold:

1. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White 2. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg 3. Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss 4. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
5. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak 6. Love You Forever by Robert N. Munsch 7. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein 8. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
9. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls 10. The Mitten by Jan Brett 11. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown 12. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
13. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis 14. Where the Sidewalk Ends: the Poems and Drawing of Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein 15. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson 16. Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
17. Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss 18. Strega Nona by Tomie De Paola 19. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst 20. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? by Bill Martin, Jr.
21. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl 22. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams 23. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle 24. Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
25. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss 26. The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka 27. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by John Archambault 28. Little House on the Prarie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
29. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett 30. The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne 31. The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner 32. Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
33. Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks 34. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell 35. Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli 36. The BFG by Roald Dahl
37. The Giver by Lois Lowry 38. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff 39. James and the Giant Peach: A Children's Story by Roald Dahl 40. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
41. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor 42. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien 43. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss 44. Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
45. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry 46. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O'Brien 47. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 48. The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
49. Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman 50. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson 51. Corduroy by Don Freeman 52. Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
53. Math Curse by Jon Scieszka 54. Matilda by Roald Dahl 55. Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls 56. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
57. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary 58. The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White 59. Are You My Mother? by Philip D. Eastman 60. The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
61. Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey 62. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss 63. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster 64. The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
65. The Napping House by Audrey Wood 66. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig 67. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter 68. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
69. The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum 70. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery 71. Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss 72. Basil of Baker Street, by Eve Titus
73. The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper 74. The Cay by Theodore Taylor 75. Curious George by Hans Augusto Rey 76. Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox
77. Arthur series by Marc Tolon Brown 78. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson 79. Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes 80. Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder
81. The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton 82. The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown 83. Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar 84. Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
85. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh 86. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein 87. Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater 88. My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
89. Stuart Little by E. B. White 90. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech 91. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare 92. The Art Lesson by Tomie De Paola
93. Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina 94. Clifford, the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell 95. Heidi by Johanna Spyri 96. Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss
97. The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare 98. The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis 99. Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney 100. The Paper Bag Princess by Robert N. Munsch

That's 56 total (I've read 45 from the list according to kids, but they also rank Where the Wild Things Are all the way down at number 73, so clearly it's an inferior list). There are a lot of great ones on here, and just reading the list brings up fun memories. We wrote and put on a play of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe in school (I was a statue animal freed by Aslan, a.k.a. an extra). I devoured the L'Engle books, both as a kid and later in college during my children's lit class. I remember re-reading the Little House books every summer, from Little House in the Big Woods through to The First Four Years. Later summers, it was the Anne of Green Gables series. For a while, I wanted to be one of the rats of NIMH. Are You My Mother? is a long running sentimental favorite, as is Horton Hears a Who. Even Caps for Sale, not the greatest book on the list, reminds me of being in Kindergarten, where we acted out the story for the rest of the school, and I got to read part of the narration. Mmmmmm - what a wonderful list!

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Distracted by Life Offline

I really intended to weblog more this summer, but the open blocks of time have been calling to me for more focused projects, and my websurfing has been pretty listless. So, I'll punt and send you over to the ACM's US Public Policy site. Their Tech Policy Weblog has been very interesting the past week or two, discussing the impact of the several recent data breaches, and the status and potential good and ill of various laws being proposed in response. Certainly, it has to be treated as negligence for a company like CardSystems to store data in unencrypted form.

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June 7, 2005

Creepy Plastic King

I've been being entertained by the new-to-me Yirmumah! comic; this past week or so, the comic has involved fast food mascots, starting with the creepy, creepy Burger King king. A month or so back in the archives there was a long stretch of Star Wars themed comics as well, if you're a big geek into that type of thing. I loved the Save Greedo one :)

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