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Semantics

Jorn Barger, April 2005

"Interesting changes in behavior must be expressible in a simple way...
In order for a program to be capable of learning something it must first
be capable of being told it."
--John McCarthy, "Programs with Common Sense" (1958) [etext]

This page is an experimental first try at rethinking my AI FAQ with the emphasis switched to semantics.

The dominant characteristic of recent human history is the ever-increasing focus of the sciences. A lesser aspect of this is the slower increase of focus in technology, creating interfaces that make the most important tasks the easiest to do.

I thought it would be simple to use Google Groups to show the word "semantics" increasing dramatically in frequency in the last few years, but the pattern is invisible.

Even using the word "elvis" as a benchmark doesn't help much:

Key:
year: [count for 'semantics'] out of [count for '*'] ([elvis-index] Elvis [count for 'elvis])

2004: 59,100 out of 7,480,000 (0.41 Elvis 144,000)
2003: 63,800 out of 885,000 (0.07 Elvis 386,000)
2002: 29,500 out of 275,000 (0.11 Elvis 225,000)
2001: 49,600 out of 122,000 (0.41 Elvis 117,000)
2000: 42,800 out of 97,000 (0.44 Elvis 88,500)
1999: 31,200 out of 70,200 (0.44 Elvis 64,700)
1998: 26,300 out of 53,300 (0.49 Elvis 51,200)
1997: 9,710 out of 49,000 (0.20 Elvis 20,700)
1996: 20,500 out of 44,300 (0.46 Elvis 31,700)
1995: 10,900 out of 22,600 (0.48 Elvis 13,500)
1994: 10,500 out of 22,400 (0.47 Elvis 14,200)
1993: 8,650 out of 21,800 (0.77 Elvis 11,300)
1992: 6,880 out of 21,500 (0.67 Elvis 10,200)
1991: 3,700 out of 21,600 (0.95 Elvis 3880)
1990: 2,700 out of 21,600 (1.49 Elvis 1810)

1989: 1420 out of 21,700 (2.73 elvis 520)
1988: 864 out of 21,600 (16.30 elvis 53)
1987: 518 out of 21,700 (15.24 elvis 34)
1986: 417 out of 21,700 (9.70 elvis 43)
1985: 383 out of 21,700 (6.28 elvis 61)
1984: 229 out of 21,700 (3.82 elvis 60)

Why did the number of posts jump ten times last year? (spam, surely) Why is the elvis index so small for 1997, 2002 and 2003?

Presumably it's much larger pre-1994 because the makeup of Usenet was more academic? But why does Google show about 21,700 posts for each of those years???

The raw graph for 'semantics' implies a pretty linear baseline:

1988: @
1989: @
1990: @@@
1991: @@@@
1992: @@@@@@@
1993: @@@@@@@@@
1994: @@@@@@@@@@
1995: @@@@@@@@@@@
1996: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
1997: @@@@@@@@@@
1998: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
1999: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
2000: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
2001: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
2002: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
2003: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
2004: @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

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