The Guardian for this meeting was Bruce Mowbray. The comments are by Bruce Mowbray.

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Qt.
Qt Core: Hi Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: Did you ever get into Artificial Intelligence?
Qt Core: beside reading a couple articles here and there no, still fighting natural idiocy
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: (Understood!)
Bruce Mowbray: Ha!
Bruce Mowbray: ME TOO!
Bruce Mowbray: (as evidenced by the AI course I am now taking.)
Bruce Mowbray: http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs188/sp12/slides/cs188%20lecture%202%20and%203%20--%20search%202PP.pdf
Bruce Mowbray: This course was actually taught at UC Berkeley, where I did my grad work.
Bruce Mowbray: The young prof brings back fond memories from 5 decades ago.
Bruce Mowbray: Anyway,
Bruce Mowbray: the course is also challenging me to write some AI algorithms.
Bruce Mowbray: for FUN!
Bruce Mowbray: and I made quite a bit of progress today... (and am happy about that!)
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, San!
Qt Core: I always wonder if whatever form of AI would be real intelligence or just fake, like having an incredible number of "pre-thought" solutions ready
Bruce Mowbray: Here's a quick link to the entire series of lectures for that course, Qt:
Bruce Mowbray: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF1A9D9034225FC92&feature=plcp
Qt Core: ty
Bruce Mowbray: I think what you are presenting is more of a philosophical question (maybe a semantic question) than a computer science question.
Qt Core: it may be, but the boundaries are almost invisible
Bruce Mowbray: For example, when we generate artificial light (incandescent bulbs, etc.), is that "fake light"?
Bruce Mowbray: I feel that there is an anthropo-centric bias when it comes to intelligence.
Qt Core: well, it depends, if you call light the sun one, then the neon one lack a lot of frequencies ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: We assume that only humans have it (intelligence).
Bruce Mowbray: When, actually, there are other species that are probably more intelligent than we are, in their own ways.
Bruce Mowbray listens.
Qt Core: speaking of AI i'd like to see even something intelligent as Blub

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: Blub is indeed an intelligent fish.
Bruce Mowbray: as fish go, that is.
Bruce Mowbray: Blub knows about PI...
Bruce Mowbray: and the circumferences of circles...
Bruce Mowbray: as you can see!
Qt Core: he at least know how to make perfect circles
Qt Core: ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: INDEED, he does!
Bruce Mowbray: And YESTERDAY was PI DAY!
Bruce Mowbray: 3.14.
Bruce Mowbray: 3.1459.....
Qt Core: yes (i found us date formatting even worse than us imperial unit use ;-) )
Bruce Mowbray: (Sorry about that drop. My typist has his sounds turned off, so he didn't hear the bell.)
Bruce Mowbray: back to AI, for a sec?
Qt Core: ok
Bruce Mowbray: first of all,
Bruce Mowbray: my typist is a computer programming MORON!
Bruce Mowbray: He's never had a programming course in his entire life,
Bruce Mowbray: so,
Bruce Mowbray: for him to imagine that he could write AI programs is a bit weird.
Bruce Mowbray: Anyway,
Bruce Mowbray: he has been teaching himself programming for many years,
Bruce Mowbray: and now is teaching himself AI, or trying to.
Bruce Mowbray: and today he is writing a MAZE-SOLVING AI program.
Bruce Mowbray: (which is actually a "Depth-First-Search" AI program
Bruce Mowbray: (which he learned from the UC Berkeley course, that I just told you about.
Bruce Mowbray: FUN!
Bruce Mowbray: He didn't realize until THIS WEEK that mazes are actually "trees."
Bruce Mowbray: trees with branches of varying length.
Qt Core: most of the things with alternatives are trees
Bruce Mowbray: Yes!
Bruce Mowbray: That's a wonderful point, Qt!
Bruce Mowbray: and many of those alternatives lead to dead-ends.
Qt Core: the fun thing is that in IT trees have roots up and leaves down
Bruce Mowbray: and finding all the dead-ends is one of the ways to "solve" a maze.
Bruce Mowbray: like, do you mean "layers"?
Qt Core: speaking about one would draw a tree, with the origin (your position) on the top of the sheet and the paths end to the bottom
Bruce Mowbray: Yes!
Bruce Mowbray: I understand.
Bruce Mowbray: What matters in maze-solving is not the orientation of the maze, though, but whether one can eliminate all of the dead-ends.
Bruce Mowbray: but, I should also mention,
Bruce Mowbray: that the prof made the very same point you just made.
Bruce Mowbray: about the upside-down tree.
Bruce Mowbray: (Actually, there are several different ways to solve mazes. Eliminating dead-ends is just one of them.)
Qt Core: one of the easiest (and long) way to solve a problem, try all the solutions
Bruce Mowbray: Yes!
Qt Core: and sometimes one has not the time or the opportunity to do that
Bruce Mowbray: Right! nor does one have the computer resources to do it.
Bruce Mowbray: (memory, etc.)
Bruce Mowbray: I apologize for this, but I am going to have to leave during the next break....
Qt Core: ir you just are followed by a monster while in the maze,...
Qt Core: ok
Bruce Mowbray: My typist has a friend in RL whose father is in emergency care right now -- and he (my typist) needs to go....
Qt Core: ohh bring my well wishes, then
Bruce Mowbray ponders monsters in mazes and remembers Theseus in the labyrinth . . .

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: Be thee well, safe, and happy, Qt!
Qt Core: :-)