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I wish he provided more technical detail as to what differentiates this from every other attempt at exposing a general learning algorithm + NLP to the web. Besi

I wish he provided more technical detail as to what differentiates this from every other attempt at exposing a general learning algorithm + NLP to the web. Beside the Wolfram brand-name, there's little reason to elevate this above 'curiosity I'll watch out of the corner of my eye' status.

programnature 18y ago
There is no mention of "learning algorithms" or stuff of that nature in the post. Its a different approach: "But if one’s already made knowledge computable, one doesn’t need to do that kind of natural language understanding. All one needs to be able to do is to take questions people ask in natural language, and represent them in a precise form that fits into the computations one can do." The nlp involved is quite different from the mainstream direction.
jerf 18y ago
It sounded to me like it was "This problem requires both brute force and cleverness, and I have supplied both.": "But with a mixture of Mathematica and NKS automation, and a lot of human experts, I’m happy to say that we’ve gotten a very long way.... But I’m happy to say that with a mixture of many clever algorithms and heuristics, lots of linguistic discovery and linguistic curation, and what probably amount to some serious theoretical breakthroughs, we’re actually managing to make it work." (Ellipses covers several paragraphs in this case.) The big stopper in some sense has not been the cleverness, but the brute force necessary, because without the brute force collection and translation, there's nothing to be clever with. I, too, am "wait and see", but this could be valuable.
cchooper 18y ago
It sounds to me like an expert system. What I can't see is how it's different to any other kind of expert system. Just more data?
madcaptenor 18y ago
Actually, I'm not sure if the Wolfram brand name is a reason to pay attention to this, or to deliberately ignore it. It's being described as a cross between Mathematica and <i>A New Kind of Science</i>; the first is wonderful, the second is a new kind of stupid, and I'm not sure which one will win.

programnature 18y ago

There is no mention of "learning algorithms" or stuff of that nature in the post. Its a different approach: "But if one’s already made knowledge computable, one doesn’t need to do that kind of natural language understanding. All one needs to be able to do is to take questions people ask in natural language, and represent them in a precise form that fits into the computations one can do." The nlp involved is quite different from the mainstream direction.

jerf 18y ago

It sounded to me like it was "This problem requires both brute force and cleverness, and I have supplied both.": "But with a mixture of Mathematica and NKS automation, and a lot of human experts, I’m happy to say that we’ve gotten a very long way.... But I’m happy to say that with a mixture of many clever algorithms and heuristics, lots of linguistic discovery and linguistic curation, and what probably amount to some serious theoretical breakthroughs, we’re actually managing to make it work." (Ellipses covers several paragraphs in this case.) The big stopper in some sense has not been the cleverness, but the brute force necessary, because without the brute force collection and translation, there's nothing to be clever with. I, too, am "wait and see", but this could be valuable.

cchooper 18y ago

It sounds to me like an expert system. What I can't see is how it's different to any other kind of expert system. Just more data?

madcaptenor 18y ago

Actually, I'm not sure if the Wolfram brand name is a reason to pay attention to this, or to deliberately ignore it. It's being described as a cross between Mathematica and <i>A New Kind of Science</i>; the first is wonderful, the second is a new kind of stupid, and I'm not sure which one will win.