[FuzzieDice]

I got to thinking. Yes, that is a bad habit - or good one, depending on one's view. Anyway, I was doing my VB.NET coursework - today was the first day. One of the quiz questions was asking if you (as a human) are a programming object, then which of the choices would be a your event? They had 4 choices, being a measurement of vision, you reading the lesson, measurement of words you can read in a minute and also simply, Pain.

Just prior to the question I knew I had aced the quiz. But, this question made me pause. NONE of them were events! For definition we are told an object is like a button on a window in an application and an event would be clicking the button. Ok, but NONE of these are something that is done TO the object! I wondered and chose Pain as it seemed like this was closest, But it still wasn't done TO an object but more a REACTION. I got the question right - it was Pain!

But, I mentioned this in the discussion area in the online classroom. I hope they don't think I'm strange. I explained it gave me pause because pain is a reaction the brain has to stimuli. The stimuli could be something like being poked by a cattle-prod. Which would more accurately be an external thing being done TO the object.

So I'm thinking here... maybe my debates and thinking in this forum about how brains work, how we percieve things, etc. have an effect in other things I do outside of the forum, namely in this case, in my class.

Has anyone else experienced this where you have used some of the skills or thought processes you've used in the forum in non-forum activities? Perhaps this forum is a good way to exercise the brain cells in logical thinking?

Or maybe I got the cattle-prod/pain thing all mixed up. I don't know... but being in this forum is fun and I enjoy analyzing things and really giving things some thought. And I think it does have an effect on what all else I do outside the forum. Maybe that can sometimes be a good thing.

I'll find out whenever the professor answers my question. LOL! I hope I won't get embarassed right on my first day of class!  :crazy2

[Freddy]

Cool - that's my unscientific reply !

Yes, I learn a lot of things and the forum debates do help to give me an better understanding of a lot of aspects of AI and also plenty of other things we touch upon. 

I am really pleased to read that FD, we only started DG up as a repository of sorts to collect infomation on AI and chatbots, but I think we have achieved that and gone marching into a lot of useful diaolog and discussion now - I'm glad  :smiley

[FuzzieDice]

Me too! In fact, thanks to DG I started the Living Machine Blog. My last post there, I got two comments from students that used my last post as a reference for their schoolwork! I was amazed. I really need to write more again there. I'm thinking of expanding Living Machine to not just be my project, but an area on Byte Bin to deal with the interaction of humans and machines, and the impact of technology on our society. As well as AI things.

[Duskrider]

I agree that what we do in forum and AI has an effect on others around us.
An example is a recent experience I had.

A friend of mine has just bought a computer after many years.    :zdg_hitcomp
I went over and hooked it up for him and taught him how to receive and send e-mail.  :zdg_hack
My second trip to his house gave him a couple screensavers and about 15 PowerPoint presentations which he loved.   :zdg_z_elephant
My third trip gave him body_female.htr .  :zdg_angryflames
I fixed the haptar to as he opens it on desktop it activates command keys which are set up to where top two rolls of keys on keyboard change the clothes, next roll does backgrounds and bottom roll does different actions including couple ogg songs and also couple dances.   :zdg_cauldren
It has astounded him to no end.   :zdg_shocked
For two weeks now he's been telling everybody what all this girl can do on his desktop.   :zdg_chicken
I don't doubt sometime in the future a program like I gave him will be standard on all new computers.   
:cool

[GamerThom]

I know this forum as wel as others have been set up to be repositories of information
on that forums given area of interest. But as a repository of info and consequently
debate by the members, it forces us to logically analyze each scrap of info & data
posted as well as comments and replies so that more meaningful discussions can
develope thus producing theories and ideas derived from the original info and
leading to the gathering of more information on new topics relating to the original
topic. Our debates here are what fuels the creative & logic areas of our brains, so
it would only be natural that this would have an effect in our lives and interactions
outside of the forum setting. It's all part of an evolutionary process of the mind.  :smiley

[FuzzieDice]

Dan - I've seen that a lot. Some people never really learn to use the computer though, but rely on others to tell them what to do. They can't actually "think" logically for themselves. Others, however, have an inherent curiosity and ability to figure things out for themselves. I once dated a guy that didn't even know what a windows desktop was on him computer. Two weeks later he diagnosed a hard drive failure, backed up data, removed the drive and reinstalled a working one, and got everything working again. By himself. Some people catch on really quickly, once they get a computer in their hands. Others just never get it.

Tom - That is so true. Sometimes though, I've come across the phrase "information overload" in terms of people trying to process all that information. Sometimes it leads to a mental burnout state. However, I think if one evaluates the information at a comfortable level and pace, one can only expand and their mental, cognitive and logical skills will improve.

BTW, as a note, the professor said that multiple choice questions are by nature ambiguous. One has to usually choose the best of the group. He mentioned this is such of the English language. Something I can easily understand after our conversations of chatbot use of the English language. I did get to understand the choices better but it still left a bit of a hole. It was one of those questions where you REALLY had to exercise your brain cells. And then it amounted to just taking a wild guess or determining which of the answers left after process of elimination is the best match of the answers left to chose from.

I'm wondering from this, if this would be how some, if not all chatbots work. Or if not, if this idea may help chatbots work better? However the chatbot would have to then come up with the choices as well and determine from those choices which is best.

Amazing to think about. I bet most of the students might not have even thought that far.

And here I answered an ambiguous question correctly due to logical thinking (or so I thought). Perhaps AIs can use logical thought to answer ambiguous questions or come up with responses?

Now this is a case of the reverse where things one learns outside the AI arena can be brought INTO the AI area. Which is what we are trying to do in the first place, I guess.

It certainly can go both ways. And by such, one I think becomes more observent outside the forum for things to learn and discuss in the forum.