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>My biggest worry (in this connection, at least) is not so much >spotting them >as stopping them. MS as a social phenomenon is a great example of >a feedback >loop. Must of us have spotted the loop, but it has such a momentum that we >have trouble stopping it, even if Bill weren't busy hard-selling the >illusion in India and other places where they might not have >spotted it yet. From what I've encountered in this part of the world, Bill has got an uphill struggle on the road ahead - Universities aren't keen to waste $$$ so more people get started on Linux (and seem to be a bit more savvy than in the West), though there is a lot of home use of MS product, perhaps in part because e.g. Windows 2000 is openly sold (even in large stores) for about $2. >Is there a way to build SW so that a semantic loop cannot be built without >automatically incorporating some defusing devise that can be popped by any >random surfer that finds it? If most people program sane systems you'll get distributed dampening. >> Len's postulate that SW can only operate in narrowly scoped domains with >> clear authority seems a logical conclusion. Was that Len's postulate? Anyway, where does Google get its clear authority from? Or does it have a narrowly scoped domain? Ok, most current e-business fits the narrow/clear model, but isn't it a bit early to assume that business will continue using a mirror of the non-e paradigm? Personally I'd guess that before long we'll be seeing a lot of relatively unscoped material with negligible authority - not unlike the first waves of static web sites. >> > > This all gets back to checks and balances. This can't be ad hoc. Oh, but look. >> > Self-training agents? Auto-adjusting stereotypes? A lot of the techniques needed for such entities have been developed already, though in closed environments. It will be interesting to see how they cope with the wild... >> Yes, eventually. Probably won't live to see it. > >That's what I'm worried about. > >> > I like that metaphor. Does any interactive fiction of the >> > complexity of War and Peace exist yet? Yes : xml-dev.
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