I can't put my finger on the exact day it happened, but sometime during the past decade or two I lost my interest in artificial intelligence.

I remember what it was like to be inspired by the thought of truly intelligent systems. I paid my dues playing with neural-network systems downloaded off the pre-Web net. I thought that AI research must be the most glamorous and exciting job in the software field.

Today, announcements of advances in natural-language processing, computer vision, robotics and other subdomains of AI scroll down my screen without meriting a click. The field no longer seems interesting. What happened?

Part of it, I suppose, is that AI has delivered on many of its early promises. Optical character recognition was once a pipe dream – now it's a standard feature of scanner drivers. Grammar checking relies upon techniques once the domain of bushy-haired AI researchers – now it's a baseline feature for any text-processing application. Computer games and input devices routinely incorporate algorithms that were once considered AI.

For all this progress, and despite the impressive results AI systems have achieved playing chess and Jeopardy, AI simply isn't exciting anymore. The technology has led to incremental improvements in existing applications, not paradigm-shifting world changers.

I guess I read too much science fiction as a kid. Somewhere lodged in my childhood dreams is the fantasy that one day I would speak to a computer as another being, and learn about its thoughts and feelings. Grammar-checking is too mundane a reality for the grand promise of AI. I wanted computers to come alive.

Two of my favorite books are centered around intelligent computers. Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_a_Harsh_Mistress), from the golden age of hard science fiction, is a recasting of the American Revolution on the moon, with an intelligent computer network named Mike playing a central role. Richard Powers's Galatea 2.2 (http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/21/specials/powers-galatea.html ) is a more nuanced tale of a quest to teach a rapidly evolving neural network to read and understand great works of literature. Your life will be richer if you read these books; I recommend them.

Does the thought of intelligent systems still make your heart beat a little faster? Then check out AI Jobs (http://www.aijobs.net/), a Web site that lists jobs in AI research and applications. There are still advances to be made in the field. Both the incremental advances that make the world go 'round and the paradigm-shifting ones that will banish my torpor. There are still mountains to climb in AI – go on, follow your dreams.

Web recommendation: Don't expect the links at the bottom of these musings to stick to the theme, in general. My mind usually jumps around in too undisciplined a manner to maintain such a correspondence. But this time, I need to send you to Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence (http://www.kurzweilai.net/), a mind-expanding Web site devoted to advances in intelligent technology. The site – you can subscribe to a worthwhile newsletter there too – is part of a loose federation of Web sites and business sparked by the work of visionary Ray Kurzweil. J.D. says check it out.

J.D. Hildebrand has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications and online communities dedicated to software development. He recently relocated to a small town outside Belgrade – stop by if your travels take you through Serbia.

The 12 bugs of Christmas

By Alam Saeed

For the first bug of Christmas, my manager said to me

See if they can do it again.

For the second bug of Christmas, my manager said to me

Ask them how they did it and

See if they can do it again.

For the third bug of Christmas, my manager said to me

Try to reproduce it

Ask them how they did it and

See if they can do it again.

For the fourth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me

Run with the debugger

Try to reproduce it

Ask them how they did it and

See if they can do it again.

For the fifth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me

Ask for a dump

Run with the debugger

Try to reproduce it

Ask them how they did it and

See if they can do it again.

For the sixth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me

Reinstall the software

Ask for a dump

Run with the debugger

Try to reproduce it

Ask them how they did it and

See if they can do it again.

For the seventh bug of Christmas, my manager said to me

Say they need an upgrade

Reinstall the software

Ask for a dump

Run with the debugger

Try to reproduce it

Ask them how they did it and

See if they can do it again.

For the eighth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me

Find a way around it

Say they need an upgrade

Reinstall the software

Ask for a dump

Run with the debugger

Try to reproduce it

Ask them how they did it and

See if they can do it again.

For the ninth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me

Blame it on the hardware

Find a way around it

Say they need an upgrade

Reinstall the software

Ask for a dump

Run with the debugger

Try to reproduce it

Ask them how they did it and

See if they can do it again.

For the tenth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me

Change the documentation

Blame it on the hardware

Find a way around it

Say they need an upgrade

Reinstall the software

Ask for a dump

Run with the debugger

Try to reproduce it

Ask them how they did it and

See if they can do it again.

For the eleventh bug of Christmas, my manager said to me

Say it's not supported

Change the documentation

Blame it on the hardware

Find a way around it

Say they need an upgrade

Reinstall the software

Ask for a dump

Run with the debugger

Try to reproduce it

Ask them how they did it and

See if they can do it again.

For the twelfth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me

Tell them it's a feature

Say it's not supported

Change the documentation

Blame it on the hardware

Find a way around it

Say they need an upgrade

Reinstall the software

Ask for a dump

Run with the debugger

Try to reproduce it

Ask them how they did it and

See if they can do it again.

As this is a Friday, and you're all likely itching to get the heck out of the office and onto your boats/horses/motorcycles/soapboxes, I thought I'd share with you some very primitive, low brow, old school funny. When was the last time you saw a good old fashioned animated gif? I came across a cache of Star Trek gifs, today. I hesitate to link to them, as they are in a really disgusting place on the Internet. Instead, I fished out a few of the best ones for you. After all, we're all Star Trek fans here, right?

We've had these lying around for a while. I thought it was time to bring them out into the open. One day, I decided to create the worst possible end user license. I believe I managed to do just that. Oh gentle readers, behold: The Cliff License

This software and its source codes may be copied verbatim to any new medium without warranty or fee provided an intact copy of this license appears at the beginning of the source code files, or as a seperate plaintext file included with the binary. Any storage medium onto which these source code files or plaintext files are copied become subject to the terms of this license upon immediate completion of the copy function. The term “storage medium” herein refers to any hard drive, removable disc drive, remotely accessible file system, local memory, frontside cache, backside cache, filing cabinets, libraries, safety deposit boxes, USB keychains, books, notepad files, cellular telephones, any telephones, cocktail napkins, and any type of circular shiny plastic disc that magically appears in the spooky spooky future.

All information contained within a storage medium subject to the terms of this license must be erased. The term “erased,” herein should be read to mean “lit on fire and thrown off a cliff.”

I had so much fun with that, I decided to make another. The Chaos License.

This software--herein referring to the actual source code of this program or datum set, and the compiled binary of this program or datum set—is made available to you free of all claims of copyright or proprietary rights. As such, you waive any right to a warranty or liability from the creators of this software in the event of unfortunate “accidents.” This software, in its purest form is comprised of 0's and 1's. As such, any attempted tabulation of these digits must result in the complete rearranging of those digits. If the user attempts to use or even comprehend this software, all 0's and 1's in the possession of the user, regardless of their location in the universe, must be rearranged. Any software running in concert with this software must be rearranged.

The simplest way to comply with this license is to immediately flip flop all digital files backward upon installation. Thus, this is exactly what this software does. Sometimes.

 Not nearly as cool, I know. Can anyone out there come up with some better ones?