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.
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.