JED%SU-AI@sri-unix.UUCP (07/04/83)
From: Jim Davidson <JED@SU-AI>
[Reprinted from the SU-SCORE BBoard.]
The July issue of Psychology Today contains a letter to the editor,
which refers to the earlier interview with Roger Schank:
"I was shocked to read Roger Schank's claims of success in building an
English-language front end for a large oil company's geological
mapping system ['Conversation', April]. I was chief programmer of
that system, and it was a dismal failure. It suffered from the same
disease as all the other "user-friendly" software I have seen. It is
friendly as long as you play by its rules and tell it what it expects
to hear. The slightest departure causes apparently random results.
Computers are completely linear in their 'thinking', while the
mind is both linear and at the same time capable of wondrously
spontaneous associations and creative flights into fantasy. The mind
has an infinite number of scripts, each with hundreds of possible
hooks on which associations with other scripts can be hung. I don't
think we'll ever duplicate the mind's linguistic ability.
Stanley M. Davis
Chicago, Ill. "