The Cyc project has been going on for some 15 years. I first heard of it when I took a class on Artificial Intelligence (surprise!). People in the knowledge engineering community that I have had the chance to talk to seem to have the opinion that the Cyc project is good intentioned, and going about it all wrong. After talking to them a bit longer, I discovered that’s what they think about everyone else in the knowledge engineering community. (And yes, that is a troll for any KE folks reading this.)
No one agrees on anything, and why should they? Their job is basically assigning concrete forms to meanings floating on the emergent sea of flashing neurons that is human consciousness. Easy, right?
The @cyc_ai bot on Twitter spouts random facts from the Cyc knowledge base. It’s kind of cool. It’s also bat-shit crazy. Here are some gems that I have seen.
DataJunkie: Finished my first OS programming assignment. Not bad. Will have to set up SVN or something so my partner and I are not writing separate code
cyc_ai: @DataJunkie Every barricading a car and taking the occupants hostage. has some barrier as a proper subsituation.
DataJunkie: @cyc_ai What???
Indeed. So I replied.
ealdent: @DataJunkie @cyc_ai has only spouted random insanity at me. if it ever becomes self-aware, it will be bat-shit crazy
@cyc_ai was compelled to reply.
cyc_ai: @ealdent Spouting is a type of movement process.
cyc_ai: @ealdent Every stream has conducting as a sub-event.
Saturday, I tweeted the following:
ealdent: drinking coffee that smells like wet dog but tastes pretty good. might have to wring my dogs out later and save some money.
cyc_ai: @ealdent A vogue is a type of taste.
Thanks, @cyc_ai!
I have to make it public. It’s suppose to be secret, however most people in Austin, Tx knows about it. The police department has machine that can read your mind. A machine that can read someone’s mind will be used to violate EVERYONE’S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS!!! It can also change the way you feel. Sexual impulses, anger, and paranoia are all feelings they can induce to you at their fingertips. This means it can cause a girl or boy to feel sexual, and get raped thinking they wanted to. Its like a drug. This is just one of the many crimes they commit with this machine RIGHT NOW!!!! They are using it right now to spy on their citizens RIGHT NOW!!! People will be spied on in there homes, without a warrant. (this means someone will be able to watch you during sex without your knowledge.) There are a lot of people all over the United States knowing about this machine. The police department is able to use it to spy on people in their own home. During interrogation they keep a person dazed, confused and not sound of mind to cohersed them into making certain statements. This is a violation of these people’s constitutional rights. Start thinking about how the government has given the police department a weapon to commit not only one of the biggest civil and constitutional rights violations of all time, but to commit war crimes such as rape, brainwashing, and toturing people without the victim’s knowledge. I know it is hard to believe, however if you happen to know someone in the police department who cares for you enough, just ask if they have a machine that can read and control people’s mind. After that, I would also like people to think about how we are able to get the government to stop letting the police department violate the people’s civil and constitutional rights, and committing war crimes against there own citizens. Major media companies have knowledge of this, but are not willing to broadcast it. People need to find out and talk about this issue.
I have to say that I am really bored of the cyc_ai thing following me on Twitter and am close to blocking it. It goes through moments of sending me a string of tweets about random mess. I followed it to start with for nostalgic reasons I guess. I don’t think it’s cool, I’m a bit disappointed in it, not sure what I expected in the 1st place but there you go :)
My latest tweet from it:
@missmcj Losing is a type of action.
If an actual person set about trying to define every odd word I use I would call them “bat-shit” crazy!