Slashdot Mirror
US Metaphor-Recognizing Software System Starts Humming
coondoggie writes "An innovative project, called Autonomous Dynamic Analysis of Metaphor and Analogy, or ADAMA, aims to build a software system that can automatically analyze metaphorical speech in five different languages by analyzing huge quantities of online data got off the ground this week when the U.S. Army Research Laboratory awarded a $1.4 million contract to the team conducting the research. The research is backed by the US Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), which develops high-risk, reward research projects for the government, and is intended to build a repository of speech metaphors from American/English Iranian Farsi, Mexican Spanish and Russian speakers. ADAMA could have immediate applications in forensics, intelligence analysis, business intelligence, sociological research and communication studies, researchers stated."
so is that meta-first?
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra?
I bet that computer is going to be busier than a one-legged humanoid robot in an ass-kicking contest.
I imagine this would be extremely useful to recognize and block new ways of referencing forbidden topics in countries that censor the internet and text messaging.
Sig intentionaly left blank
Sometimes punctuation is important. "American/English Iranian Farsi, Mexican Spanish and Russian speakers" doesn't make any sense.
Sokath! His eye open!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra?
But, but, but .... with the project called ADAMA it should be from Battlestar Galactica.
And what software wrote that summary? Ouch, that thing was painful to read. And I have no idea why the title says the software has 'started humming'. Doesn't anyone go over these things to make them a bit more readable before putting them on Slashdot's front page?
When someone says, "Any fool can see
... and as is so often the case, Douglas Adams predicted it decades in advance:
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"Well," [Richard] said, "it's to do with the project which first made the software incarnation of the company profitable. It was called Reason, and in its own way it was sensational."
"What was it?"
"Well, it was a kind of back-to-front program. It's funny how many of the best ideas are just an old idea back-to-front. You see there have already been several programs written that help you to arrive at decisions by properly ordering and analysing all the relevant facts so that they then point naturally towards the right decision. The drawback with these is that the decision which all the properly ordered and analysed facts point to is not necessarily the one you want."
"Yeeess ..." said Reg's voice from the kitchen.
"Well, Gordon's great insight was to design a program which allowed you to specify in advance what decision you wished it to reach, and only then to give it all the facts. The program's task, which it was able to accomplish with consumate ease, was simply to construct a plausible series of logical-sounding steps to connect the premises with the conclusion.
"And I have to say that it worked brilliantly. Gordon was able to buy himself a Porsche almost immediately despite being completely broke and a hopeless driver. Even his bank manager was unable to find fault with his reasoning. Even when Gordon wrote it off three weeks later."
"Heavens. And did the program sell very well?"
"No. We never sold a single copy."
"You astonish me. It sounds like a real winner to me."
"It was," said Richard hesitantly. "The entire project was bought up, lock, stock, and barrel, by the Pentagon. The deal put WayForward on a very sound financial foundation. Its moral foundation, on the other hand, is not something I would want to trust my weight to. I've recently been analysing a lot of the arguments put forward in favour of the Star Wars project, and if you know what you're looking for, the pattern of the algorithms is very clear.
"So much so, in fact, that looking at Pentagon policies over the last couple of years, I think I can be fairly sure that the US Navy is using version 2.00 of the program, while the Air Force for some reason only has the beta-test version of 1.5. Odd that."
"Do you have a copy?"
"Certainly not," said Richard. "I wouldn't have anything to do with it."
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Wait. This isn't reddit? My internet explorer must be broken.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I've got your metaphor analysis system *right here*!
Personally, I think such a system should be called the "Innuendo Engine" as sexual references would end up being the underlying context for the vast majority of decyphered metaphors.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Sometimes a cigar is not a cigar.
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra?
But, but, but .... with the project called ADAMA it should be from Battlestar Galactica.
Shaka! When the walls fell.