Re: response to J. Prothero book review and comments of 12 Oct 90

[uunet!cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!lojbab]

>I'm not sure that an algorith exists for reliably dealing with antecedents in
something like this "Joe likes Jerry.  He says that he tells cool jokes."

Two answers to this.  The first is that the example is hopelessly ambiguous.
Without any context, >I< can't tell what the second sentence pronouns refer
to.  Why expect a computer to do so.  The computer, absent any heuristics,
would simply ASK "Who says this?".  With heuristics, the computer would learn
to make the guess (which is all that it is, since a human can;t be sure
either) that the first "he" is Joe, because there has been no change in
focus, or indication of change.  Guesasing is, of course, the second answer.
However, I think it depends on the apllication whether guessing in such an
instance is acceptable.  I'm not looking for a Turing type of HAL-9000, but
an intelligent program that can recognize when it doesn't know something
and ask, possibly indicating its best guess for confoirmation.  This should
be much easier.
I've heard that there is someone programming a computer with 'common sense'
(a Discover from a couple issues ago, I think) understanding of English.
It is a slow process to write all the rules, as jimc seems to be trying to
do.  A heuristic program would >learn< by experience.

-lojbab