Some words and sentences are ambiguous — they could be taken more than one way.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Or is it? Does ambiguity make language difficult to understand? Or could it actually make communicating easier?
Linguist Daniel Midgley enjoys ambiguity more than most people on this episode of Talk the Talk.
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Show notes
Some people think that ‘Eugene Goostman’ is the first computer to pass the Turing Test.
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20140906-25642.html
Not really, except by exploiting the judges’ expectations.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10886389/Computer-passes-the-Turing-Test-Im-not-convinced.html
Other bots have ‘passed’ the test, including Cleverbot.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140609/07284327524/no-computer-did-not-pass-turing-test-first-time-everyone-should-know-better.shtml
Here’s a transcript of Eugene’s output. Would you be fooled?
http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1858
Ray Kurzweil conversation with chatbot Eugene Goostman. Notice how bad the bot is at real-world questions, as well as understanding the same information stated in different ways.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/response-by-ray-kurzweil-to-the-announcement-of-chatbot-eugene-goostman-passing-the-turing-test
Want to see the ten senses of ‘bank’ in WordNet?
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=bank&sub=Search+WordNet&o2=&o0=1&o8=1&o1=1&o7=&o5=&o9=&o6=&o3=&o4=&h=
Ambiguous words probably make communicating easier
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-ambiguous-words-easier.html
Earlier: the advantage of ambiguity in language
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/miot-mta011912.php
Run is an incredibly polysemous word.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/opinion/29winchester.html?ref=languageandlanguages
‘Duck’ less so, but still.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=duck
How do computers do word sense disambiguation?
http://aclweb.org/aclwiki/index.php?title=Word_sense_disambiguation
Crash blossoms
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/is-this-headline-clear-learning-about-ambiguity-and-clarity-from-headlines/
The buffalo sentence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo
