not the optimal answer.) A good example of this computational ineptness is the field of natural language translation. Artificial intelligence gurus in the 1950s and 1960s believed that translation would be one of the first areas to succumb to computers -- what is it, anyway, but simple word replacement to account for vocabulary and word shuffling to account for grammar? Initial efforts in English-Russian translation quickly revealed that language is far more amorphous than was previously thought, often resulting in hilarity: In two famous examples, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak," became "The vodka is good but the meat is rotten," and an engineering paper discussing hydraulic rams became a long discourse about water-goats (Kurzweil 406). While computers have become hundreds of times faster and programming methods have been greatly refined since these efforts, translation still has its share of difficulties. AltaVista's orline translation service, which translates to and from English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, renders the preceding sentence about vodka and water-goats, translated into Spanish and back, as "The initial efforts in the translation English-Russian revealed quickly that the language is more amorphous distant than was thought previously, often giving by result hilarity: In two famous examples, 'the alcohol is arranged but the meat is weak' became 'the vodka is good but the meat is putrefacta', and the hydraulicos rams discussing of paper of engineering became a long speech on water-goats." Clearly, these programs still leave a great deal to be desired. AltaVista falls into the same trap as the original program translating 'spirit' and 'flesh,' and another ambiguity appears since the same word in Spanish can be used for 'willing' and 'arranged.' Curiously, it appears that the words 'rotten' and 'hydraulic' are in only the English-Spanish dictionary and not vice versa (the failure of t...
