Uncommon Knowledge about Death
Is it used by the police? I say Probably.
Does it have a hole in it? I say Probably.
Is it a predator? I say Probably.
Is it used for entertainment? I say Probably.
Does it have a backbone? I say Probably.
Does it have a face? I say Probably.
Does it use numbers? I say Probably.
Does it dig holes? I say Probably.
Is it found in salad bars? I say Probably.
Is it smart? I say Yes.
Is it originally from Africa? I say Probably.
Does it have arms? I say Probably.
Can it speak? I say Probably.
Is it ferocious? I say Probably.
Is it delivered? I say Probably.
Does it cut? I say Yes.
Words of wisdom from 20Q,net, a site that allows you to play 20 Questions with a robot. The interesting thing is: The robot learns from each game. It's an ongoing artificial intelligence experiment. I've played the game many times and tried to catch the robot learning, but the questions seem to rotate as part of the game, so it's hard to detect a change.
The robot is very talented at guessing objects, but has trouble with abstract concepts. The noun I was trying to get the robot to guess above was "suicide." It did manage to guess that my concept had something to do with death, so gold star for robot boy. After I admitted "defeat," it bragged about some of its other knowledge about death, spewing out the list shown above.
Sigh. Robots apparently have little need to understand death. (Although I will admit that death is used by the police, is used for entertainment by some, alas, and is found in salad bars. Especially in certain Korean delis around the midtown Manhattan area where they leave the lunch food in the hot/cold trays until dinnertime, by which time the whole buffet has become a deadly hot 'n' cold Petri dish of romping pathogens.)
Try a game yourself here.
