From: beers@acsu.buffalo.edu (Andrew Beers) Subject: Re: APPS: I want my VR-TV NOW!! (Lingo) Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 13:45:08 GMT Organization: UB In article <1uheb5INNi6j@news.u.washington.edu> Jon Blossom writes: >>nsmca@acad3.alaska.edu (Morgoth the Mad) writes: > >>Don't know of any translation progs right now, but I bet they are >>nearly here.. > >---------- >Get Real! > >The dream of having translating computers was lost long ago when AI >researchers realized how complicated Natural Language was. Not quite. There is an experimental telephone that translates English to Japanese (I don't remember the developers offhand). It currently has about a 1,000 word dictionary. Limited, true, but given the advance that this equipment represents, I can imagine a more practical system in the future. >If there were translation programs nearly available, then why >wouldn't there be programs that can understand just one language >(English)? Why would we still be talking to our computers in C and >Assembly? Because English is a horribly ambiguous language. Think of the myriad of ways that you can use English to express an idea. Or the myriad of ways one English utterance can be interpreted. As programmers, we still have to hold the computer's hand to get it through the computation it is trying to do for us. >Have you ever thought about how complex it would be to write a program >to parse and _understand_ and English sentence? This (understanding) is the ridiculously complex program. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Andrew C. Beers, N2LUH beers@cs.buffalo.edu SUNY Buffalo, Computer Science {rutgers,uunet}!cs.buffalo.edu!beers