We function now as an AI Mind Maintainer debugging the Perlmind free AI source code. In the ghost198.pl AI we first stub in the audacious MindMeld() module to nudge AI practitioners into devising a way for two AI Minds to share their dreams. Then we deal with some problems pointed out on Usenet by persons who have downloaded the Perlmind and evaluated its functionality.
We run ghost198.pl with "dogs are mammals" as input and we press the Escape-key to halt the AI after its first response, "I HELP KIDS". We notice immediately three problems with how the word "DOGS" is stored in the @psy and @ear memory arrays. For some reason, "DOGS" is being assigned new-concept #3002, even though the Tutorial display of diagnostic messages indicates that the AI is preparing to assign new-concept #3001 to the first new concept. We check the MindBoot() sequence to make sure that "DOG" is not already a known concept in the AI; it is not. Now let us inspect the source code to see where the new-concept number $nxt is incremented from 3001 to 3002. We see that the end of MindBoot() clearly assigns the number 3001 as the value of the $nxt variable. Now let us search for the $nxt++ increment. It is happening towards the end of the NewConcept() module. We immediately wonder if $nxt is being incremented before AudMem() stores the concept-number. We insert into AudMem() a diagnostic message to let us know the $nxt value before storage. The first diagnostic message does not tell us enough, so we insert a second diagnostic into the AudMem() module. It also does not help us.
In the AudInput() module we use some diagnostic messages to learn that the "S" in "DOGS" is first being stored with the correct $nxt value of "3001" and then a second time with the incorrect value of "3002". Perhaps we should increment $nxt not in NewConcept() but in AudInput(). We move the $nxt++ increment from NewConcept() into AudInput(), and we stop getting the wrong values of the $nxt variable.
A second problem is that the concept of "DOGS" is being stored with a zero instead of "2" for "plural" in the $num slot of the @psy conceptual flag-panel. The most recent incarnation of the InStantiate() module does not seem to address the $num value sufficiently, so let us inspect recent or older MindForth code. We discover that the obsolete 24jul14A.F version of MindForth uses some complex tricks to assign the num(ber) of a concept being stored, so we will put aside this problem to deal with more serious issues.
The third and presumably more serious problem is that the input word "DOGS" is being stored with the $nxt concept number "3001" only on the "S" phoneme and not on the "G" at the end of the word-stem "DOG". Let us leave that problem also aside for a while, because entering "dogs are mammals" repeatedly is running into more serious problems. FOr instance, all three words of the input are being stored erroneously with the same $rv recall-vector, which can cause the wrong auditory memories to be retrieved. Let us see if the previous ghost197.pl does the same error. Yes, and so does the ghost196.pl AI. However, we should not find it difficult to correct the $rv problem. We fix the problem by resetting $rv to zero at the end of the InStantiate() module. Now the Perlmind no longer goes off the rails of thought, and so we upload it to the Web.
