somervta comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89 - Less Wrong

12 Post author: Vaniver 30 June 2013 01:22AM

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Comment author: robryk 30 June 2013 09:50:27PM *  3 points [-]

"So," Harry said, "you know those really simple Artificial Intelligence programs like ELIZA that are programmed to use words in syntactic English sentences only they don't contain any understanding of what the words mean?"

"Of course," said the witch. "I have a dozen of them in my trunk."

Did she mean that she had muggle computer programs? Or did she mean some magical artifacts that work in the same way, or was this just a simple misunderstanding?

Comment author: somervta 30 June 2013 10:41:23PM 11 points [-]

I assumed that it was sarcasm.

Comment author: robryk 30 June 2013 11:05:58PM 5 points [-]

The thought didn't cross my mind and now that you've mentioned it it seems quite obvious. My sarcasm detector must be broken.