Index and transcripts of the movie snippets presented in the talk “Reasoning with Natural Language” - Carlos A. Prolo - July, 2015
Bicentennial Man Id Start 1 5:51
Description - What is it? - It’s an Android - What’s an Andrew? - Will that be one’s name? - Why not? - Sounds good -Andrew, don’t ever do it again. - Of course not, Sir. It’s a onetime only.
Topics covered Does not perceive the misunderstanding and does not get the resulting non-Gricean behavior (unlikely question out of the blue),
- Good night Andrew. - It certainly is, Sir. - No, Andrew, the correct response to “Good night” is “Good night.” - Good night. - Yes. - You just said “Yes.” - Yes. - But the correct response to “Good night” is “Good night.” - Good night, Andrew. - Good night, Sir. - Good night, Andrew. - Good night, Sir. - You only need to say it once. - Or one would be saying it forever, Sir. In an infinite verbal loop. 10:48 - I think it sucks. - Sucks? How? Chickens do not have lips. 11:08 - We are fine, Andrew. - Indeed you are, Sir. - The kitchen. (Gesturing as an order to go to the kitchen.) -It’s fine too, Sir. - No, go to the kitchen, now.
Show how difficult it is to explain conversation rules and common sense. Most likely robots would be in fact programmed by rules. However, it seems that common sense, world knowledge and basic conversational skills are learned from experience, repetition, from engagement in conversations over and over again during life.
18:05 Context: The older daughter had previously commanded Andrew to throw himself through the window. The younger girl implied she done it too. - Would you please come with me? - Do this involve a window?
No way!! It is very hard to conceive that a robot that lacks basic conversational skills would recover, from the little girl’s invitation, the incident of having to jump through the window. In fact it’s hard to conceive how humans do that. Moreover the joke in the last utterance is also not realistic for a robot.
2
7:00
3
7:30
4
5
6
Does not understand the speech act of command from the imperative mood.
Does not get the idiomatic meaning.
Lack of basic conversation conventions. Implicature, speech acts.
7
24:00 Sequence of jokes, e.g: - Why did the chicken cross the road? - One does not know. Possibly a predator was behind the chicken. Or possibly there was a female chicken on the other side of the road … - To get to the other side. - Why is that funny?
Violating non Gricean behavior is one key ingredient of jokes (e.g. stating things that are obvious, common sense). Another is ambiguity. Also engaging in unlikely line of reasoning (driver). We may investigate the ingredients of a joke, but what does make a joke funny?
And also: - Two cannibals were eating a clown. One says, “Does this taste funny to you?”
House, M.D., Season 3, Episode 24 (Human error) Id 8
Start 4:59
Description - (Wilson:) House, you play a guitar you got in the ninth grade. - (House:) Eighth. - W: You’re living in the same apartment for 15 years, you drive a 10 year-old car, you are not good with change. - H: That used to be true but I changed -
Topics covered Reasoning is approximate, filling gaps: Instead of just evaluating the truth value of the statement, House checks how close it is from a parallel true statement as if by pattern matching (edit distance?) and reply with just what would have to be fixed to make the statement true. Accept partial evidence as proof beyond reasonable doubt, no exact inference in real life Convincement instead of proof: Wilson pulls out three true statements to make one general point (instead of prove, a convincing argument (??))
9
5:10
10 5:37
11 5:50
- He is not afraid to be you. He is afraid to be who he thinks you are. - This would be a lot easier if we had her medical records - If there is one thing Castro knows, it’s how to look great in green. And if there are two things Castro knows, it’s how to look great in green and train doctors. Even without medical records, we can assume she was drown in antibiotics before she risked drowning to see me.
Mutual knowledge is defeasible Modal, intentional logic How can you prove that? In fact you cannot. It is not always true, It is a convincing argument because it is likely to be true. Engages in a completely non-Gricean behavior by saying things apparently out of context, that apparently do not contribute to the conversation. In real life people would be annoyed asking him to get to the point. And eventually he gets there. Nothing of what he says is true, or provable, or likely, etc. He just somehow prepares for an argument using rhetoric to convince (instead of proving). The argument is completely non-sense. But people would take it.
12 6:18
- Chase, check out the husband. - Why? He hasn’t complained of any pain. - Basic math. Take all of her symptoms, subtracts her sea symptoms, the remainder equals her original symptoms
13 19:05 Abductive reasoning described in slide 42 H: (A) My patient lost her heartbit during routine cardiac catherization ... C: (B) It’s human error H: (C) It’s not (B) human error C: (D) Electrical instability H: (E) Pre-procedure ERG was normal ... C: (F) Ischemia? H: (G) Foreman said (H) no (I) ST cycle changes C: (B’) Human error is the only other possible ... H: (C=) It’s not human error C: (J) You don’t want (K) Foreman to have made a mistake ...: Because then (L) you would have to mock him ...: And (M) that would put a crimp on your brilliant plan of keeping him 14 22:25 - Dr. House. - You can vacuum later. - I’m not the janitor, I’m Esteban Hernandez.
Start with abductive reasoning: search for a reason. Then, of course the argument is flaw, but reasonable, subject to revision (defeasibility). They get that it might be a good idea to try and see what one can get from the differential analysis, to see if they may make sense of something, even knowing about the imprecision. Again, convincement, beliefs, not truth and proof. Abductive reasoning, search for a cause (see slide 42)
Of course it is mutual knowledge that he is not the janitor, and that both of them know that each other know (that each other know)* … that he is not the janitor.
