The paranormal in all its glory is the subject of the 130s. Ghosts, vampires, witches; feng shui, the I Ching, astrology, palm reading, and psychics; Nostradamus and 2012; it's all there. And I find it all pretty creepy. So this week I channelled my inner skeptic and only brought home Exposed! Ouija, Firewalking, and Other Gibberish, by Henri Broch, which Amazon, btw, markets under the category of "Controversial Knowledge." Seems to me that's an oxymoron. I mean, knowledge sounds to me like facts, and facts can't be controversial. They just are. You might not like gravity-- it sure annoys me sometimes-- but it's not just a good idea, as the saying goes, it's the law.
(Anyway, at least the title of the book leaves something to the imagination, unlike another offering in the 140s: Dogs Who Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home. For some reason, that title struck me as hilariously specific and uninviting to anyone (like myself) who doesn't have a dog or a particular interest in their admittedly admirable loyalty and affection.)
Speaking of unlikeable facts, or fictions, I also went into the 140s, where there is much less selection, and decided to stick with my theme of grumpy cynicism. I chose, mainly because of its absurd title, 50 Popular Beliefs that People Think Are True, by Guy P. Harrison. Is it just me, or is that sort of like 50 Philosophies that Are Ways of Looking at Things, or Cute Kitties that Are Felines? Well, I guess I am going to learn about popular beliefs that people think are true, as opposed to popular beliefs that people think are crap but still invite to parties, because I am in no frame of mind right now to read 500 pages on Romanticism or Humanism, which is what else I could do in the 140s.
Really I just want to get on with it and into the 150s, where 158 (applied psychology, or, unofficial tech support for your brain) is loaded with books I've been actually wanting to read, like Think Like a Freak (sequel to the very entertaining Freakonomics) and The 8th Habit (because 7 weren't enough and Stephen Covey does not come across like a flim-flam artist.) And they're available on audio, so I can get mental hacks in my car!
But first I have to debunk everything from dowsing to Area 51. I'll let you know if I turn up anything really interesting!
Friday, January 30, 2015
Saturday, January 17, 2015
How to Be Human
I just finished The Most Human Human by Brian Christian, which is about computers simulating human conversation (one working definition of AI). You will get a detailed summary from this interview. Computer simulation of other supposedly exclusively human skills has been all over the news lately, too: moral and ethical improvisations in The New York Times, identification of emotions via facial expressions in the New Yorker.
AI is always all over the place. The IKEA chatbot, for example. It was programmed by a previous winner of the Loebner prize, but was completely unhelpful to me. I asked it if I could arrange for someone else to assemble my order, and it just referred me to generic web pages that did not contain the information I wanted. Then it asked whether its answer had been helpful. When I said No, it responded "Sorry. As an IKEA Online Assistant I don't know the meaning of 'no.' " Well, that's adorable, but shuts down the conversation, doesn't it? As I learned from the book, a good conversationalist offers plenty of holds with her responses, instead of just saying, "That's not what I wanted to hear."
My favorite robots are the ones that don't pretend not to be, like the CVS prescription reorder system. "Press or say 1," "The first three letters of the patient's last name are..." Okay, that's a conversation we can have. If I have any actual questions, I can press 2 for a real person.
So the topic of conversation simulation is interesting in itself, but the description of Christian's experiences as a Loebner Prize confederate went beyond interesting to inspiring. I even emailed the organizers about the possibility of participating next year! If nothing else, what a great excuse to take a trip to Bletchley Park!
AI is always all over the place. The IKEA chatbot, for example. It was programmed by a previous winner of the Loebner prize, but was completely unhelpful to me. I asked it if I could arrange for someone else to assemble my order, and it just referred me to generic web pages that did not contain the information I wanted. Then it asked whether its answer had been helpful. When I said No, it responded "Sorry. As an IKEA Online Assistant I don't know the meaning of 'no.' " Well, that's adorable, but shuts down the conversation, doesn't it? As I learned from the book, a good conversationalist offers plenty of holds with her responses, instead of just saying, "That's not what I wanted to hear."
My favorite robots are the ones that don't pretend not to be, like the CVS prescription reorder system. "Press or say 1," "The first three letters of the patient's last name are..." Okay, that's a conversation we can have. If I have any actual questions, I can press 2 for a real person.
So the topic of conversation simulation is interesting in itself, but the description of Christian's experiences as a Loebner Prize confederate went beyond interesting to inspiring. I even emailed the organizers about the possibility of participating next year! If nothing else, what a great excuse to take a trip to Bletchley Park!
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
120-129: Matters of Life and Death
The 120's encompass both what it means to be human and what happens afterwards: the most popular number is 129, which includes both Heidegger and a Hippo Walk through Those Pearly Gates and, in the children's department, The Fall of Freddie the Leaf, by Leo Buscaglia, which is pretty much exactly as creepy as you might expect.
Heidegger, of course, is the diametric opposite of creepy, but I just lost patience with it. One of their main points is that you are going to die and you probably are in denial about that, but not me! I am stunningly aware that my life is finite! That's why I'm only reading one book from each decade of the library, not every single book or even one from each number!
So I chose The Most Human Human, an engagingly-written combination stunt memoir and research paper about artificial intelligence and the Turing test, aka the Imitation Game. So far he has explained how he came to participate in the Loebner Prize as a human, and has gone on to discover that one essential element of human conversation is continuity, that it hangs together. Now he's talking about whether logic is overrated. I actually got this book because I thought my husband, who works in computing, would like it, but I think it's really interesting too.
Heidegger, of course, is the diametric opposite of creepy, but I just lost patience with it. One of their main points is that you are going to die and you probably are in denial about that, but not me! I am stunningly aware that my life is finite! That's why I'm only reading one book from each decade of the library, not every single book or even one from each number!
So I chose The Most Human Human, an engagingly-written combination stunt memoir and research paper about artificial intelligence and the Turing test, aka the Imitation Game. So far he has explained how he came to participate in the Loebner Prize as a human, and has gone on to discover that one essential element of human conversation is continuity, that it hangs together. Now he's talking about whether logic is overrated. I actually got this book because I thought my husband, who works in computing, would like it, but I think it's really interesting too.
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