I enjoyed using the Metacat program, though, to agree with Riki, it didn’t hold a lot of long-term excitement. That aside, I was very entertained (as many of us seemed to be) by the once in a while choice of the program to “go get some punch”, was it? What does this show about the program’s similarity to or difference from the human brain?
This message comes up when the program can no longer think of an alternative, intelligent solution to a problem it’s been given. Essentially, it hits a wall. Is this possibly the most human part of the program? Or is it the least? It seems to me like the program is basically saying “I dunno guys, I give up.” On the one hand, this seems like a very human thing to do, when all of the other possibilities seem to be going nowhere. If you’re not getting anywhere, why not give up? Still, in the other direction, it can also be seen as a flaw with the program. It lacks the capacity to think beyond a certain point, gets “frustrated”, and stops. It’s still pretty amazing that a computer program can try multiple ideas, remember which it has tried, and base new ideas off of those memories; is this road block another piece of that, or a glitch that is the next step in evolution of the Metacat program?