A famous example of how much context matters to the interpretation of a “simple” communication goes like this: A standard “nuclear family” – husband, wife, two minor children – is depicted with the wife saying to the husband, “We’ll have cake as soon as the children wash their hands.”
To whom is the wife really speaking? What is the actually intended audience, and what is the true intended consequence?
That one is fairly obvious, yet it would be difficult for a software language processor to decode. A lot of context is required to make sense of it, yet we Mark One humans would have no difficulty figuring out what’s really being said and to whom. That includes the postulated minor children.
Here’s another from just this morning. While getting ready to leave for work, the C.S.O. said to me, “I’ll get my contacts after work.”
I can think of three different ways to interpret that statement, only one of which is consistent with the context. How many ways could you interpret it – and what are the odds against a program getting it right?
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