Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

So what? Natural language is complicated, because a) It does something very complicated, and b) it is the result of a complex process.

Yes, many words have more than one meaning. That's one of the many reasons why we need formal, context-free, specialized languages to communicate our will to machines effectively.

But humans are not machines. We can do context, and we can use words that mean more than one thing. We can also deal with misunderstandings much better than an automaton.

And this newspeak even fails at the goal of providing an unambiguous: Unless context is provided, a person who makes 6 figures a year is "financially disadvantaged" when compared to a billionaire. But noone would mistake someone earning 6 figures with someone who is poor.



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: