On 31/05/2012 12:12 PM, Invisible wrote:

> Of course, /the/ canonical logic programming language is Prolog.
> Apparently when people first saw that thing back in the 1970s, everybody
> suddenly thought that human-level AI was just around the corner.

Exhibit A: The Cat from Outer Space, 1978.

In it, the military program in all their data into a truck-sized 
computer with a blurry green screen. They then key in the question "who 
piloted the ship?" The lights flush, the tape streamers go crazy, and 
then the computer slowly replies "the cat".


Exhibit B: War Games, 1983.

The WOPR is a supercomputer that "spends all day thinking about World 
War 3". From the way it behaves, you can just picture it being powered 
by a kind of souped-up Prolog.

By contrast, Tron (1982) comes across as less computerised. The 
characters all behave like humans who are slightly computerised, rather 
than computers that are slightly humanised...

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