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The author talks about fuzzy logic as being probabilistic and having to do with natural language, and that fuzzy logic is "the kind of logic we most often use h
by srcreigh 11y ago
The author talks about fuzzy logic as being probabilistic and having to do with natural language, and that fuzzy logic is "the kind of logic we most often use here at FiveThirtyEight." However, the rice cooker is not probabilistic at all, and takes discrete input (not natural language):
> In my current fuzzy-logic [sic.] cooker, however, I tell the machine what kind of rice I’m using [white or brown] and how long it has been soaking [a decimal value]. It takes that [discrete] information and decides what temperature it should reach, and for how long. Generally using what are essentially if/then statements, [emphasis mine] it can fine-tune the process.
Anna, what is your reader supposed to think when your only example doesn't meet the requirements you set out for it yourself? It is especially alarming here since the thing you're trying to illustrate is the way your organization thinks.
> “Fuzzy theory is wrong — wrong and pernicious,” Kahan said. “The danger of fuzzy theory is that it will encourage the sort of imprecise thinking that brought us to so much trouble.”
- emodendroket 11y agoYour "sic" is gratuitous; it's being hyphenated because it's being used attributively/as an adjective. I guess you could describe the rice cooker as "taking a much larger number of inputs than a traditional rice cooker" but that doesn't seem to work as a marketing slogan as well as "fuzzy logic."
- dave2000 11y agoThe "sic" is fine if it really is just being used as a marketing term.
- srcreigh 11y agoIt's not a fuzzy logic rice cooker. I've used [sic] because it's an incorrect characterization of the item. I agree with your marketing observation. Maybe they could have called it sophisticated logic (or something like that)? The history of fuzzy logic (which was cool) could be replaced with stories of sophisticated problem solving.
- taco_emoji 11y ago[Sic] is used to indicate that a linguistic malformation or variance within a quotation is being intentionally reproduced from the original source, thus preventing the reader from thinking that the disfluency was newly introduced in the act of transcription. Using it to express your personal opinion on the perfectly grammatical and accurately spelled content of the quotation is terribly confusing.
- saint_fiasco 11y agoHow long it has been soaking is probably a fuzzy measure, unless you want to make the user of the rice cooker to use a chronometer or make the rice cooker itself soak the rice. As for the if/then statements, even fuzzy logic needs cutoff points.