Since I play and write interactive fiction, I’ve compared Eli’s grasp of English to IF parsers before. He’s progressed beyond the Scott Adams two-word parser, though now he is like a parser that pretends to know words it doesn’t.
ME: Do your eyes hurt?
ELI: No.
ME: Does your nose hurt?
ELI: No.
ME: Do your knees hurt?
ELI: No.
ME: Do your mitochondria hurt?
ELI: No.
He may have been correct, but he did have a fifty-fifty chance of guessing correctly.
5 Comments
Hmm, that must be my problem today. I’m achy all over because my mitochondria hurt!
I think that I would have loved to have been party to that conversation.
After observing Dante’s behavior, I’ve concluded that babyhood is just like one big, sparsely implemented IF game that keeps adding content and depth as you go.
>X BLOCK
The block is red and fuzzy.
>GET BLOCK
Taken.
>SHAKE BLOCK
Nothing happens.
>PUSH BLOCK
Nothing happens.
>PUT BLOCK ON TABLE
The block is now on the table.
>PUSH BLOCK
The block falls off the table!
*** Your score has just increased ***
Surely, if he knows what *does* hurt, then for any random bit you name that isn’t the same bit as the one he knows hurts, the odds of “No” being the right answer are a lot better than even.
Or is this me not understanding how probability works again?
No, I think you’re right. The exchange just amused me.