Around 2000 I took an AI course at the University of Guelph. I don’t think I learned too much. We didn’t talk about neural networks, as far as I can remember. My end of term project was, I think, a pathfinding algorithm wearing an AI costume. There were certainly no discussions of transformers. No CUDA. No PyTorch. None of that existed. But what I remember doing a lot of was coding in Lisp - a lot of Lisp in the dark University of Guelph CIS lab.
  • skorn@ani.social
    2·
    2 hours ago

    I always find Lisp a bit mind bending and feel like I will be a better programmer once I master it. But it also feels like wood carving, and most of the time I just need to slap some planks together for a bookcase, and don’t have the time to scrimshaw it into a beautiful work of art. I’m not seeing here how Lisp is differentiated from an agent with a code sandbox and python, unless we’re operating that agent inside of Emacs… That’s where the code and the data are swimming together. I don’t think there isn’t a difference, it’s more a matter of my not getting it, if anyone is able to help me understand it’d be appreciated