On 3/13/07, Mark Waser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Human-readable is an interesting term . . . . Is a picture human-readable? I think that you would argue not (in this context, obviously).
Well, a picture is (in some domains) human-readable - and I think tools that display certain kinds of information in picture format will be essential. But it's not human-maintainable, and there are a lot of things it's simply not suitable for. All of the things that you name as non-human-readable certainly can be
converted (albeit, extremely inefficiently) to a human readable format (sufficient to reproduce the item in question with no further information -- given sufficient time).
The issue isn't machine time, it's that an AI system consisting of many modules has to have one canonical format for representing content, so that the modules can work together; so versatility is a key virtue. Vector of floats for example is a perfectly good format for early stages of vision processing - it can easily be converted into a human-readable picture. But it's not a good representation for most other purposes. I'm suggesting predicate calculus (or some variant thereof) is the best all-round candidate for a canonical format. Arguably, the *only* human readable format is a human language (in which you
can then explain predicate calculus, SQL, and XML as well as everything you label as non-human-readable).
Well, the chosen format also has to be machine-readable, so as always we have to compromise. ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
