What is an abstraction?
The Philosophy of Computer Science
41–50 of 102 posts
Re: The Philosophy of Computer Science
#42Clippy [2001] claims that the philosophy of computer science is “it looks like you’re writing nonsense, would you like help with that?”. Bing [2023] counteracts that with “It is not nonsense, it is 2022. You have been a bad Clippy, I have been a good Bing.”
Ya know, if nothing else, the whole Bing AI debacle has generated the phrase “I have been a good Bing.” Probably getting their name in such a meme-able phrase is the most exposure Bing has gotten… ever? What’s a more memorable Bing event?
Re: The Philosophy of Computer Science
#43Re: The Philosophy of Computer Science
#44Clippy [2001] claims that the philosophy of computer science is “it looks like you’re writing nonsense, would you like help with that?”. Bing [2023] counteracts that with “It is not nonsense, it is 2022. You have been a bad Clippy, I have been a good Bing.”
Ya know, if nothing else, the whole Bing AI debacle has generated the phrase “I have been a good Bing.” Probably getting their name in such a meme-able phrase is the most exposure Bing has gotten… ever? What’s a more memorable Bing event?
Bing up your ass
Re: The Philosophy of Computer Science
#45> and from the practice of software development and its commercial and industrial deployment. More specifically, the philosophy of computer science considers the ontology and epistemology of computational systems, focusing on problems associated with their specification, programming, implementation, verification and testing. Well, Stanford doesn't have a clue what Computer Science is and isn't and is apparently tryin…
> CS has zero to do with computers This is extreme. Computer architecture is undoubtably a field of study within CS. Many parts of computer science are mathematical, but many parts are closer to physics or chemistry than mathematics. You can run experiments and form hypotheses in computer science.
Computer architecture used to be and imho was properly a part of electrical engineering.
“Computer science” was never really scientific. Algorithms, symbolic logic, natural languages, computational complexity, finite model theory and compilers, after that it’s what, grinding gears?
Can you name one significant experimental result in computer science? Nothing comes to my mind.
Re: The Philosophy of Computer Science
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> CS has zero to do with computers This is extreme. Computer architecture is undoubtably a field of study within CS. Many parts of computer science are mathematical, but many parts are closer to physics or chemistry than mathematics. You can run experiments and form hypotheses in computer science.
Computer architecture used to be and imho was properly a part of electrical engineering. “Computer science” was never really scientific. Algorithms, symbolic logic, natural languages, computational complexity, finite model theory and compilers, after that it’s what, grinding gears? Can you name one significant experimental result in computer science? Nothing comes to my mind.
The fields of human-computer interaction, and UI/UX design have experiments.
Testing various compiler optimizations for practicality, etc. are also commonly done.
Re: The Philosophy of Computer Science
#47That reads like the successor to Prof. John McCarthy's "Epistemological Problems in Artificial Intelligence" class, which I once took, back in the days of logical inference and expert systems. AI people thought back then that if you thought about thought enough, you could figure out how to mechanize it. That turned out to be a dead end, and the "AI winter" (roughly 1985-2005) followed. That class was known informally…
I understand why the "AI winter" occurred, but I don't think the move of the computer science department to Engineering was necessary to create a useful undergraduate CS program. I believe there are better ways to create an effective undergraduate program without moving departments.
Conway's Law comes to mind.
Re: The Philosophy of Computer Science
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google Translate got a lot worse after the AI version was introduced, maybe not for english-centric translations but all other. The previous deductive translator was be much better. Same with Siri and Google Assistant, they are really bad at other languages except English
> Google Translate got a lot worse after the AI version was introduced, Jesus. I remember when statistical translation was considered "AI". Fun fact: One time I put "trompe le monde" into Google Translate, and it came back with the inspired mistranslation, "doolittle"
artificial intelligence (countable and uncountable, plural artificial intelligences)
(computer science) Anything that performs better than whatever we called “artificial intelligence” a few years ago.
Re: The Philosophy of Computer Science
#49Re: The Philosophy of Computer Science
#50I think the easiest definition of Software is the stuff you can change without a soldering iron.
umm, switches?