Jumbo A.I.

In previous reflections, I have disputed the "artificial intelligence" level of Hofstadter's programs, calling them sequential and machine-like in their process. I have also said that writing a program to resemble the way a human would go about these puzzles would be nearly impossible. However, after reading this latest section, Hofstadter goes into detail about how the mechanics behind "Jumbo" work and the steps he took to specifically make this more of an artificial intelligence program rather than a mathematical problem solver. The steps he takes, such as just providing possibilities to the answer of the puzzle rather than the exact answer using a dictionary, make it seem much more plausible that this replicates how any person may go about solving one of these anagrams. Hofstadter also does an excellent job of explaining the process through analogies such as molecules or bonds between humans.

There quality of Jumbo that really sells me as a program representative of humans is that it does not use a dictionary. Hofstadter goes on to say, "that is irrelevant to the mental processes I am attempting to model", when talking about not using a dictionary knowledge base. Instead of being an "expert system", the purpose of Jumbo is to compose words using a building process, whether these words are recognizable or not, is irrelevant. This process of using letters to form clusters which then form "gloms" which eventually end up in a word, I believe, is what truly sells this as a program that represents human skills and processes.