Understanding Natural Language

Terry Winograd's Master's Thesis literally changed my life. It was the first thing I ever encountered that I could look at, and say "Yes, this is A.I." It might have been limited, but it was still remarkable (especially in the early seventies). This book is that thesis, with some very minor changes and additions.

Reading this now, more than forty years later, will not give the reader new to the material the same rush of excitement and discovery, but it's still very worthy. It's well written, and provides insights into the early days of semantic processing, and general planning (in the AI sense).

The world that SHRDLU knew about was limited. It was comprised of a table, some variously colored and shaped blocks, and an appendage to show more manipulate the blocks on the table. I still have the old source code.

Great book, and still worth reading. show less