HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tim@iss.nus.sg (Tim Poston)
Subject: Re: Computer writes a book?
Organization: Institute of Systems Science, NUS, Singapore
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 06:17:06 GMT

sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:

: Based on this I propose the Welden Test of natural intelligence: put a
: person in a booth where he can communicate only by teletype.  Have him
: communicate with two respondents, one a human, one a machine.  If he
: can't tell which is the machine, he is behaving without natural
: intelligence.
: 
: Congratulations to your instructor--he has failed the Welden Test!

Be fair on the poor guy; he was grading a _Modern_Poetry_Class_.
None of the usual tests like coherence, levels of organization, etc.
would allow more than half the class a natural intelligence certificate.

Besides, the A+ submission was written by the poster's husband,
using BASIC to mechanize some selection from words and phrases _he_
installed --- not just a full dictionary and a set of language rules ---
and he and she selected the most successful poem, in their view,
from the output.  He was facing mostly natural intelligence.

Finally, he was not able (even by teletype) to interrogate the machine,
which was thus not a `respondent' in the Turing/Welden sense.
So he was not even _subjected_ to the test, let alone failing it.

Tim

________________________________________________________________________
  "She was not one of the two North American poets worth more than
   a warm mouthful of industrial cherry cola, and it rankled."
                                                                 Ibid.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Natural Language newsgroup
Date: 25 Jan 1993 18:49:42 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity von Uniland, College Park
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: periodic.eng.umd.edu
Originator: clin@periodic.eng.umd.edu


   Based on suggestions by Mark Kantrowitz (correct?), the charter now looks like
this.   Any further modifications can be suggested.

***
 >Charter for Natural Language Newsgroup
 >
 >     Name: comp.ai.nlp (vs. comp.ai.natural-lang)
 >     Moderated?:  Unmoderated
 >     Purpose:   To discuss issues related to natural language, especially
 >                but not solely the kind of issues that researchers in
 >                AI would consider important to natural language.   This
 >                would include issues such as:
 >
 >                    * Natural Language Understanding
 >                    * Natural Language Generation
 >                    * Machine Translation
                     * Natural Language Interfaces
                     * Parsing
                     * Computational Linguistics.
 >
 >                Issues related to specific research being done in the
 >                field may also be considered.   (new) This newsgroup
                  will leave out areas, such as speech synthesis, which
                  are already covered by other newsgroups unless it pertains
                  directly to issues above or related issues.
 >
***
 >
>    If anyone else has any additions, please contact me at clin@eng.umd.edu.
>Jaime Cisneros has expressed interest in helping out, but to make it 
>easier, I'll use my e-mail address.   If this bounces, you can try
>him at cisneros@eola.cs.ucf.edu.   Send mail concerning whether you
>would vote for such a group or not.  If neither, then you do not need
>to send mail.   If you have suggestions, or would like to help, please
>send either of us or both, e-mail.
>
>    Despite my interest in setting up this newsgroup, I should warn
>you that I consider myself only a novice in the area.  So, any questions
>concerning anything related to natural language issues should wait
>about half a year or so.  If the vote is successful, we can set up
>some anonymous ftp site to hold FAQ information.
>
    Mark has already volunteered to help set up an anonymous FTP site
if this group is formally formed.

    The total count is up to eight in support of such a newsgroup.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu
From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Natural Language newsgroup
Date: 28 Jan 1993 07:55:06 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity von Uniland, College Park
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: transform.eng.umd.edu
Originator: clin@transform.eng.umd.edu


    The announcement for an RFD for a natural language newsgroup doesn't
seem to be out quite yet.   This is simply a reminder that discussion will
take place in news.groups.  I am currently collecting a list of people,
and will contact those who are interested later when the CFV, or the
actual voting comes around.

    If you are interested and have not contacted me (or do not see
your name in the RE: comp.ai.natural-language, which is the article
name in news.groups), please send me e-mail.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu

Xref: sparky comp.ai:5025 rec.arts.books:26360 misc.writing:4277 rec.arts.int-fiction:1281
From: kasprj@operators.its.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,rec.arts.books,misc.writing,rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Computer writes a book?
Date: 26 Jan 93 14:49:25 GMT
Reply-To: kasprj@rpi.edu
Organization: The Big Wedge

In article <1993Jan25.163029.1901@seas.smu.edu>, pedersen@seas.smu.edu (Ted Pedersen) writes:
|> 
|> I think this is a stunt. I don't really believe a computer program
|> wrote this book. However, if anyone has any information about this
|> book or the author that would give this some credibility I would like
|> to hear about it. Comment on the general idea would be interesting as
|> well. I don't think the idea itself is impossible, it just seems like
|> this case is a little far fetched. 
 
 There is, in fact, some serious research going on in the area of 
computers writing books. Here at Rensselaer Polytutescrew Incorporated,
professor Selmer Bringsjord has been working on several different projects
aimed at getting a computer program to produce meaningful stories. Its 
primary goals are really the investigation of the philosophical and 
computing problems of getting something like this to work, and they haven't
produced any computer-generated novels yet, but I've seen some rudimentary
output. It looks something like children's stories written by Eliza.
------------------------------------------------------------------
     __  Live from Capitaland, heart of the Empire State...
 ___/  | Jim Kasprzak, computer operator @ RPI, Troy, NY, USA
/____ *| "And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start 
     \_|      To mold a new reality -- closer to the heart."
      ====  e-mail: kasprj@rpi.edu or kasprzak@mts.rpi.edu
From: Bob_Hearn@qm.claris.com (Robert Hearn)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Computer writes a book?
Date: 27 Jan 93 22:05:02 GMT
Followup-To: comp.ai,rec.arts.books,misc.writing,rec.arts.int-fiction
Organization: Spartacus Software

In article <74AXBPTT@cc.swarthmore.edu>, behrens@cc.swarthmore.edu (Eric
Behrens) wrote:
> 
> In article <1993Jan25.163029.1901@seas.smu.edu>, pedersen@seas.smu.edu (Ted
> Pedersen) writes:
> > 
> > 
> > I saw the following in the Books column (by Olin Chism) of the Dallas
> > Morning News Sunday January 24, 1993. Copied without permission. It
> > concerns a computer program that allegedly wrote a book in the style
> > of Jacqueline Susann. 
> > 
> > 
> 

I remember hearing about this a while back, and I think I heard it as
factual.  It's certainly not impossible; there are two questions which
must be asked of any computer composition, however.  The first is,
how much editing is the meta-author allowed to do?  This can range from
correcting simple grammatical mistakes to culling the best parts and
putting them together.  That is, generate a lot of grammatical nonsense,
and pick the parts that are good and stick them together.
The second question is, what is the potential range of material
generated?  If you run the program again, do you get the same novel, or
one with an Identical plot but different characters, or a totally
different novel that is still in the style of Jacqueline Susann?

If you can run the program and without fail get a new, totally
different, Jacqueline Susann novel every time, you've really got
something.  I think this is a long way off.  If you spend months poring
over output for the right pieces and string them all together so it
makes sense, you don't have much.

My guess is that Scott French has something in between, and the
specific answers to my two questions would be needed to characterize
how much of an achievement it is.

BTW, I wrote a program while in college that would take an initial
state defined by a set of characters, attributes, and goals, and tell
the story of the characters attempting to resolve their goals.  It was
based on Jim Meehan's Tale Spin program.  My favorite story was the one
I got when I gave a character a state it didn't know anything about.
It was unable to resolve any goals.  It goes like this:

"Once upon a time there was a bear named Jack.  Jack was dead.  Jack
was still dead.  The end."


> 
> But you never know.  I recall an NPR report perhaps two years ago.  It was
> about a computer scientist who had spent a decade creating a program which
> could compose in the style of Bach.
> 

I would be very interested in hearing more about this program from anyone.
I've  always wanted to try something like that.


Bob Hearn
Spartacus Software

Opinions expressed here are those of my empolyer, since that's me.
Newsgroups: comp.ai,rec.arts.books,misc.writing,rec.arts.int-fiction
From: tim@iss.nus.sg (Tim Poston)
Subject: Re: Computer writes a book?
Organization: Institute of Systems Science, NUS, Singapore
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 06:00:01 GMT

behrens@cc.swarthmore.edu (Eric Behrens) writes:
: Maybe it could do e e cummings, but a novel...  :)
1) e e cummings did write a novel (The Enormous Room),
   based on his prisoner of war experiences.
2) he was one of the most `poetic' of poets,
   using the lateral, more analogue than digital,
   possibilities of English to the limit.
   It is not hard to get a computer to produce
   correct English syntax (though the _content_ is
   liable to seem odd); it is very hard to get
   it to break the rules in a way that communicates
   emotional force to the reader.

A computer will write like Ms Susanne a long while before one
writes like e e cummings.

Xref: sparky comp.ai:5096 rec.arts.books:26580 misc.writing:4345 rec.arts.int-fiction:1314
From: srt@aero.org (Scott Turner)
Newsgroups: comp.ai,rec.arts.books,misc.writing,rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Computer writes a book?
Date: 27 Jan 93 18:39:56 GMT
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: sun-dimas.aero.org

twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin) writes:
>What I want to know is, why does anyone *want* a computer to write a book? 
[...]
>Consider the scarifying number of us out here who are willing to do 
>it without programming, task forces, bodies of researchers supported 
>by grants and salaries, or indeed, the least little bit of encouragement.

There are many interesting reasons to look at computer storytelling.

For one thing, a computer that can tell stories will likely have a lot
of the communication skills necessary to interact in more meaningful
ways with its users than current computers.  Certainly one could see
the usefulness of a storytelling in a domain like CAI.

At a more fundamental level, building a computer program that can tell
stories is a way towards understanding and modelling the cognitive
processes used in storytelling.  One purpose of my research in
computer storytelling is as a vehicle for studying issues in
creativity.  I trust the value of creative computers is apparent.

					-- Scott T.
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: davidd@ctsx.celtech.com (davidd)
Subject: request for info on autonomous agents
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 21:45:05 GMT
Organization: Cellular Technical Services, Seattle


Hello, I'm a new reader to this news group and was wondering if
anyone could offer any words of wisdom.For a few years now I've
had several ideas for a computer game. It would be you vs a
autonomous agent of some kind. It would not be a shoot-them-up
kind of thing, rather something dealing with questions/actions/challenges
something like that. Anyway I was babbling incoherently about it
the other day over lunch with a friend and she was wondering what
game theory/ AI books I had used as references. I hadn't used
either. I'm in the process of looking for the game theory books
now and am wondering about any references anyone could recommond
dealing with autonomous agents, planning, etc. Or any work along
these lines anyone has done. Thanks for your time and help.

David

-- 
    ___   ____   ____    David Doll                   |
   /       /    /___     Cellular Technical Services  | davidd@celtech.com
  /___    /    ____/     2401 4th Ave., Suite 808     |         -or-
                         Seattle, WA 98121            |   uunet!ctsx!davidd
From: kampf@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Katharina Kampf)
Subject: test - sorry
Organization: Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 15:18:46 GMT
Distribution: dnet


this is test only - sorry
Newsgroups: comp.ai
From: rwab1@cl.cam.ac.uk (Ralph Becket)
Subject: Re: Abductive Reasoning?
Reply-To: Ralph.Becket@cl.cam.ac.uk
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 10:11:38 GMT

I suppose I would say that abduction is the inferential process of
coming up with possible explanations for things. Josephson et al (1987)
propose a definition of abduction:

	D is a collection of data (facts, observations, givens etc);
	H explains D (ie. if H were true, then it would imply D);
	no other hypothesis explains D as well as H;

	therefore, H is correct.

The third line in the definition tries to remove wild or implausible
explanations from the set of solutions.

Abduction is used in machine learning, for example. A fun paper to read
with all this sort of stuff in is Brian Falkenhainer's "A Unified 
Approach to Explanation and Theory Formation." Falkenhainer talks about
abduction (amongst other things) in PHINEAS, a proggy which uses analogy
to infer explanations of phenomena it hasn't seen before.

Hope that's not too far off the mark,

	Ralph
From: kathyj@pyramid.COM (Kathy Johnson )
Newsgroups: comp.ai,rec.arts.books,misc.writing,rec.arts.int-fiction
Subject: Re: Computer writes a book? WHY?
Date: 28 Jan 93 22:29:19 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corporation, Mountain View, California

In article <C1KLvK.913@unx.sas.com>, sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com (Fred Welden) writes:
|> 

|> 
|> So you've added authors to the list of folks who might have good reasons
|> to create a program that writes books.  The question I asked (and I
|> can't tell from your headers whether you're responding to me or not) was
|> why would PUBLISHERS want such a thing?
|> 
|> -- 
|> --Fred, or another blind 8th-century BC  |  sasafw@dobo.unx.sas.com
|>         Hellenic poet of the same name.  |
So they could replace their staff writers with it?  8-)
From: csa33@seq1.keele.ac.uk (H.S. Nwana)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: New Problems in IJCAI Reviewing (long)
Date: 21 Jan 93 16:05:41 GMT
Organization: Keele University, England

From article <memo.881052@cix.compulink.co.uk>, by davenewman@cix.compulink.co.uk (David Newman):
> In-Reply-To: <PFPS.93Jan19132429@idefix.research.nj.att.com> 
> 
> Surely it is up to the editors to ensure anonymous papers are sent
> for review to reviewers who do not know the author.
>
I am not sure I understand this Dave. How would you expect an editor to know
if some reviewer knows the author? Surely, it is up to a reviewer to send back any paper to an editor when the reviewer feels he/she cannot referee that paper
without bias towards/against the author; the latter in a situation where
the work the paper reports is in direct competetion with that of the reviewer.
I have certainly sent back a paper to an editor under such a pretext.

Hyacinth Nwana
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 00:33:53 CST
From: David James Alexander Hanley <U16244@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.compression
Subject: Re: Legal Discussion

  Okay, here's a legal question:

  Some proprietary algorithms have now been patented.  In particular,
arithmetic compression comes to mind.  I personally don't think this is
ethical, nor should it be legal, but I digress.  Would it be possible
to, in a sense, re-invent the algorithm using a different model, if it
acheived the same goals?  I.E.  Could you define your algorithm in a
different way but still essentially perform arithmetic coding?

  I think this is an important problem, becuase many independant programmers
may be forced out of the industry.  Imagine if quicksort had been patented!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.
He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for
protection to his own" - Thomas Jefferson, 1814

SEND E-MAIL TO : hanley1@earth.eecs.uic.edu
From: schaefer@kirk.fmi.uni-passau.de (Achim Schaefer)
Newsgroups: comp.compression
Subject: Re: PKZIP 2.04E now available...
Date: 27 Jan 1993 07:57:01 GMT
Organization: University of Passau, Germany
NNTP-Posting-Host: akira.fmi.uni-passau.de

caeser@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Robert Michael Trotter) writes:

>	Just got off the PKWARE BBS, the new PKZIP 2.04E is now available
>	for download. though some would find that interesting here.

>	Caeser
>-- 
>Minnesota Vikings	11-5	NFC Central Division Champions 1992-93!

>Salisbury back in the pocket,DRAW to Allen,Allen bursts up the middle,TOUCHDOWN!
What's about anonymous ftp. Where can I get it?

 -Achim

Newsgroups: comp.compression
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: compression/archive file formats
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 07:58:38 GMT

In article <1jqrasINNb85@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> cn659@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Paul R. Sadowski) writes:
>I'm looking for file format information for the popular (and not
>so popular) compression programs - such as ARJ, LZH, ZOO formats...
>etc. I don't want to decompress the files, just find the file info
>such as filenames, time & date stamps, size...
>
>I have the info for ZIP & ARC but I can't find the others. 

You can find the others at many FTP sites including ours.  Take a
look at our /pc/arcers and /unix arcers directories.  Below are the
essentials.  Also see the FAQs
 118710 Dec 19 18:56 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/ts/tsfaq31.zip
  47206 Nov 27 16:14 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/doc-net/faqc9212.zip

 138538 May 20  1989 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/arc602.exe
 200502 Jan 27  1992 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/arj230ng.exe
 119977 Jan 11 22:36 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/arj239b.exe
  28606 Jan  7 10:54 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/ha098.zip
 114243 Nov 20 07:08 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/hpack78.zip
  44416 Aug  1  1991 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/lha213.exe
 103338 Oct  7  1990 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/pak251.exe
 119808 Feb 27  1989 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/pk361.exe
 140116 Mar 27  1990 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/pkz110eu.exe
 188818 Dec 28 02:04 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/pkz204c.exe
  98863 Sep 26 17:49 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/sqz1082e.exe
  40062 Jan 18 11:06 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/unz50p1.exe
  45595 Apr 21  1992 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/zip10exx.zip
 114486 Aug 28 15:37 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/zip19p1x.zip
  73461 Jul 12  1991 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/arcers/zoo210.exe

 125879 Nov 23 11:38 garbo.uwasa.fi:/unix/arcers/arc.tar.Z
 667464 Dec  5 16:43 garbo.uwasa.fi:/unix/arcers/hpack78src.tar.Z
  96999 Jan 11 07:24 garbo.uwasa.fi:/unix/arcers/lha101u.tar.Z
  35321 Nov 23 11:38 garbo.uwasa.fi:/unix/arcers/unarj230.tar.Z
 299288 Jan 15 08:42 garbo.uwasa.fi:/unix/arcers/unz50p1.tar.Z
 186591 Nov 23 11:38 garbo.uwasa.fi:/unix/arcers/zip10ex.tar.Z
 244565 Nov 23 11:38 garbo.uwasa.fi:/unix/arcers/zip19p1.tar.Z
 237093 Nov 23 11:38 garbo.uwasa.fi:/unix/arcers/zoo210.tar.Z

..................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi      Co-moderator of comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous FTP archives 128.214.87.1
Faculty of Accounting & Industrial Management; University of Vaasa
Internet: ts@uwasa.fi Bitnet: salmi@finfun   ; SF-65101, Finland
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: zipsplit with pkzip204c Was: Re: Unix release? (Was etc.
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 09:32:29 GMT

In article <1993Jan26.044940.6569@rei.com> fox@rei.com (Fuzzy Fox) writes:
>Where can I find a write-up or description of an algorithm which solves
>the Knapsack Problem?  I have been unable to locate such a description
>(or even source code).

I'll ask around a bit at the university.  (Please post if you get
useful answers as a consquence).

Another place where there might be users with the know-how besides
comp.compression is sci.math.num-analysis. 

   All the best, Timo

..................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi      Co-moderator of comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous FTP archives 128.214.87.1
Faculty of Accounting & Industrial Management; University of Vaasa
Internet: ts@uwasa.fi Bitnet: salmi@finfun   ; SF-65101, Finland
From: telliott@bbn.com (Thomas R Elliott)
Newsgroups: comp.compression
Subject: Psychacoustic Masking
Date: 27 Jan 1993 20:22:13 GMT
Organization: Bolt Beranek & Newman
NNTP-Posting-Host: charm.bbn.com


There may be other groups in which this question can be posted,
but it seems appropriate to compression as well. The first two
audio layers in the proposed MPEG standard include psychoacoustic
masking to compress the audio portion of video, in addition to
subband coding.  Are there any good references or overview
papers on this topic?

Regards,

Tom Elliott, telliott@bbn.com
From: osynw@gemini.oscs.montana.edu (Nate Williams)
Newsgroups: comp.compression
Subject: Re: PKZIP 2.04E now available...
Keywords: n
Date: 27 Jan 93 18:41:56 GMT
Organization: Montana State University

Downloading it now, and will upload it to wuarchive ASAP.

(Save's on international traffic)

Nate
-- 
osynw@terra.oscs.montana.edu |  A hacker w/out a home. 
work: (406) 994-5991         |  Keeper of the Unofficial 386BSD Bug Report
home: (406) 586-0579         |  Please send bugs and/or fixes you find.
Newsgroups: comp.compression
From: am49469@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Alexander Mesin )
Subject: problems unzipping
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 15:12:11 GMT

I was running into problems lately trying to unzip files.  I have tried running
 PKUNZIP V1.01 and V1.93, and both give me the same error message.  They
 say they can't find the file and to use PKZipFix.  Is something wrong
 with the file or my disk or what?  Also is there a place I can get 
 PKZipFix via an FTP site?