On 4/1/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 1, 2007, at 10:58 AM, Ron Ritzman wrote:
On 4/1/07, Fastfission
<fastfission(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Excerpt from NY Times Magazine, "Questions
for Douglas
Hofstadter", 4/1/07:
Q. Your entry in Wikipedia says that your work has inspired many
students to begin careers in computing and artificial intelligence.
1000 quatloos says this was something that "everybody knows".
A. I have no interest in computers. The entry is
filled with
inaccuracies, and it kinds of depresses me.
And of course "everybody" is FOS.
There's no contradiction between the two statements, though.
For that matter, Hofstadter never claimed there was a contradiction.
He said the entry on him "is filled with inaccuracies". Even if he
*did* mean to imply that the statement about inspiring many students
was one of those inaccuracies, he's still claiming there are many
others.
That said, I just removed the statement about inspiring students, as
it was anecdotal and lacked sources. If someone cares to present a
reliable source which claims that Hofstadter has inspired many
students to begin careers in computing and AI, feel free to add it
back with a citation.
So, I fixed it. Want to make a bet someone comes along and fixes it back?
Anthony