Logic Loops and Dictionaries
Posted by Sjixxxy on August 29, 2001 | No Comments
Ever looked up the word “The” in a dictionary? In the ones I’ve checked, they define the word “the” by using the word “the.” Now I’ve always been told that you can’t use the word you are defining in the definition, but in this case the word is one of the mandatory words for the english language, and we all learn it without needing a definition. So I guess it is ok since no one ever came home and said “Gee Hon, Janet used this really strange word today that I never heard before. This word she used was The. I’d better go look it up because I have no clue what it means.” No body ever actually looks it up to figure out what it means.
So what happens when an intelligent robot is reading the dictionary to pick up the language? Wouldn’t its logic circuits just kind go into an endless loop while trying to figure out “The.” I image that when it encountered The in the definition of The, its processing system would flag it as an unrecognized word, then access its memory to try to define it. Only this would take it back to the beginning of the definition of The where it would encounter The in the definition again and then loop back to the beginning of the definition again to try to figure it out. Therefore it would be stuck in this little loop of being unable to define the word. At this point It would probably explode killing half of humanity, but only after making a lot of comic malfunctioning noises.
Any ways, I now know what my life mission is. It is to write a robot friendly version of the dictionary. Course, I’d then define the formal introduction of a woman as Dirty Whore Bag instead of Miss. It would be fun to see all the super intelligent robots innocently insult people.
-- Update - -
One reader contacted me saying my argument here is flawed. He claims that if the robot was programs decently that there would be code to detect the loop and break it. Here is his exact quote.
“yes, it is…. though your logic is faulty with the robot…
any self respecting programmer would make count for each time it encountered the seame word and didnt know what it is.. and escape from the loop….
you are a crappy programmer.”
Well, The is an unavoidable word in the english language. The robot will encounter it again very soon, and get hung up again. Even with an escape function the damn robot still isn’t going to learn the word The from a dictionary. Then we are still going to be stuck with a no good robot that can’t figure out the meaning of The.
Filed Under: Science/Technology
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