Names and situations have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent (me). For clarity purposes, some bits that may have been merely thought at the time, are fully spelt out here.<\/i><\/p>\n
A bit over a year ago, last class of the semester<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n \nProf. Travoltus<\/b>: And I wish you all a successful career and might see you again one day, shall you decide to go for a post-grad in AI.<\/p>\n Dave<\/b>: Does that mean you are involved in that curriculum too? Oh god, no.<\/p>\n Prof. Travoltus<\/b>: Indeed I am. And don’t worry, I hate your guts too.<\/p>\n Dave<\/b>: Why, thanks. You are quite a tool yourself.<\/p>\n Prof. Travoltus<\/b>: You little arrogant piece of self-sufficient shit. Don’t you think I didn’t notice your constant sneering at every other one of my [very unfunny] jokes and comments, all semester long.<\/p>\n Dave<\/b>: Same to you sir. By the way, 1970 called and it wants its corduroy bellbottoms back. ‘said you could keep the pungent cologne, though.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n A couple months ago:<\/strong><\/p>\n \nProf. Obiwankenobus<\/b>: How’s your project going?<\/p>\n Dave<\/b>: Erm, hanging there. We are nearly ready to start work on the agent communication component. I just wanted to run those exhaustive test-case diagrams [that I spent all night putting together] by you first.<\/p>\n Prof. Obiwankenobus<\/b>: Hmmn.<\/p>\n Dave<\/b>: “Hmmn”?<\/p>\n Prof. Obiwankenobus<\/b>: I don’t think you have the right approach here. You are too restrictive.<\/p>\n Dave<\/b>: Well… we only have 6 months to modelize, implement and test this. We had to put some restrictions on the model.<\/p>\n Prof. Obiwankenobus<\/b>: You are sticking way too close to the reality-based programming paradigm. You need to think outside the box. Free your mind. The compiler does not<\/em> exist. It is an illusion created by your senses to fool your mind. The system should have boundless, limitless, free-form interaction. Agents should compete, cooperate, genetically evolve within the system, exchange runtime code…<\/p>\n Dave<\/b>: Professor, there is something I need to tell you.<\/p>\n Prof. Obiwankenobus<\/b>: ?<\/p>\n Dave<\/b>: I know you haven’t left that immaculate elephantine tower of yours for some time. And I do say: the view’s gorgeous from here. But I feel there are some things you must know about the outside world as it has become in 2007.<\/p>\n Prof. Obiwankenobus<\/b>: Ah, yes, the outside world. How are they doing on those portable time-travel devices, by the way?<\/p>\n Dave<\/b>: About that… No time-traveling technologies to speak of. No teleportation either. Also, computers aren’t sentient holographic beings yet: they come in clunky metal boxes and very rarely talk to you in a meaningful fashion. Software developers still use text-based programming languages that they compile on non-quantum computers.<\/p>\n Prof. Obiwankenobus<\/b>: What??? Flying cars, then?<\/p>\n Dave<\/b>: Nope. <\/p>\n