[HN Gopher] Interview with Dr. Ken Iverson (1982)
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       Interview with Dr. Ken Iverson (1982)
        
       Author : tosh
       Score  : 27 points
       Date   : 2024-12-04 16:25 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.arraycast.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.arraycast.com)
        
       | anonzzzies wrote:
       | Lovely one this, highly recommended.
        
         | bobterryo wrote:
         | Special thanks to Bob Bernecky and Whitney Smith for preserving
         | this archival material and making it available to our podcast.
        
       | 082349872349872 wrote:
       | transcript: https://www.arraycast.com/episode92-transcript
        
         | bobterryo wrote:
         | Although we do make the content available through text, as the
         | editor of the episode I think there is a great benefit to
         | hearing Dr. Iverson speak. The nuances of his humour and the
         | warmth of his personality can not really be captured in text.
        
           | cratermoon wrote:
           | Some people have diminished auditory capabilities.
        
             | bobterryo wrote:
             | Yes, we create written transcripts for those folks with
             | diminished auditory capabilities because we think that it
             | is important to be as accessible as possible. In fact many
             | who do not have auditory challenges choose to read instead
             | of listen. That is their choice.
             | 
             | My previous comment was directed to those who are in a
             | position to have a choice in their media consumption and
             | might not realize what they could be missing by reading the
             | transcript.
        
       | drcwpl wrote:
       | "And if you say that, can we make machines that would somehow
       | simulate that behavior so that a person could not really tell the
       | difference whether it's a living organism or a machine, I'm sure
       | that's already possible to a large extent."
        
         | abrudz wrote:
         | Also (mind the year this is from!):
         | 
         | -- Can you teach a computer to write poetry?
         | 
         | -- If you can teach it--yes, there's nothing easier. One of the
         | things is that you could do, for example, you could simply give
         | it a collection of poems or prose or whatever you have, and
         | then provide a program which selects pieces from these, either
         | individual words, individual phrases, individual passages, and
         | so on, and merges them together according to some criterion,
         | which you would then write into the program, and also with a
         | certain element of chance. Usually, you know, you'd say, "Well,
         | you want to pick this sometimes, that sometimes." Yes, you can
         | write it, but you raise the question, what would be the point?
        
           | codr7 wrote:
           | What would be the point, indeed...
        
       | robomartin wrote:
       | Nice interview. While using APL professionally for around ten
       | years, I had the opportunity to attend lectures with Iverson and
       | a number of the top APL guys from the era (the guys who wrote all
       | the APL books of the time). Talk about a guy and an idea that was
       | way ahead of its time. I still have a picture I took with him
       | during on of the annual APL conferences in the 80's.
        
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