I peaked an interest in AI and decided to go the AI Faq section. It seems there is no FAQ for AI. Is this a work in progress? Or a "nope, don't got one" sort of deals?

Not sure, but there is a load of AI info in the Resources: Articles (AI) section.

This might be a foreign notion, but I think more informed responses will be found in the AI forum itself. [smile]

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Original post by Oluseyi This might be a foreign notion, but I think more informed responses will be found in the AI forum itself. [smile]

Good point, but it wasn't about AI specifically, so I played it safe. But thank you.

It just never happened. There were several failed attempts about 4 years ago to get one going... and it's certainly one that should get done, since the same questions get asked day in, day out...

... so, who's got time to compile one? Not me. 8(

I started to do one, then realized it was turning out to be a huge FAQ. So I turned it into a book instead :)

If users can provide some suitable Q&A I'll format and put something up that a more AI knowledgable moderator can then add to. I'm really not in this forum enough to know what gets asked often, so my only suggestion to start it off would be some links to other resources (ai-junkie, ai depot, others?).

So, AI forum users - what questions are you sick of answering? Provide a question (or just a title for an area you think users should be informed of), and take a shot at giving a fairly concise answer, preferably including one or more links to other resources (link existing GDNet articles when appropriate, but off-site is fine too). If we get a few suitable responses you'll get yourselves the beginnings of a faq. [wink]

Remember - keep any info provided brief and concise, and links to additional reading are a good thing.

It seems like there are a lot of questions about A* and neural nets. Unfortunately, I'm not qualified to answer most of those questions so I can't really help in making the faq. Also much of the time people don't know what type of AI to use for what. The faq should definitly include a list of AI types and what they are good for.

I wrote some AI FAQ. Pretty deadly and full of grammar errors. However it talked about a weak and a strong AI.

Perhaps best idea would be write down a few questions, then thinking about FAQ.

Summary: Google is your friend.

You know, forums don't have to have FAQs. I mean, for the most part they're a holdover from Usenet days when each newsgroup had its own well defined chunk of the internet universe. Nowadays we've got the whole web and Google. Typing "AI FAQ" on Google yields plenty 'o' FAQs. Some of them are not up to date. That's why neo-net culture is more about being good with a search engine, rather than people repositing big lists of stuff. I mean, is it a FAQ or a friggin' database? Generally, people don't do a good job of keeping databases current; since it's going to get stale anyways, why bother? Some people bother anyways; some people can't distinguish between a FAQ and a "list of burning opinions I want to make known to the world."

Looked at another way: is anyone feeling stressed out about repeat questions in this forum, to the point of wanting to write documents to answer them? Probably not. I mean, who cares? It probably won't stop the questions anyways, because there's no consistent "read the FAQ" culture anymore. Knowing that FAQs are so highly variable in their quality and availability, people don't assume it's worth looking for them. If they even know what FAQs are.

Some people compulsively look for a FAQ because they're worried about getting yelled at. But hey, if someone yells at me every few months, what's the big deal? Most people aren't that unkind to a newbie. Those that have to yell, are gonna yell at me for what I think anyways. Always gonna yell about sumthin', it's in their blood.

Now, bear in mind, I'm not against people amassing compendiums of potentially useful information. It's just that in this Google age, I don't see a need to associate such knowledge bases with particular forums, unless those forums are very very specialized.