Basic Aspects of AI

[Christopher C. Stacy]

 Arthur> cstacy at dtpq.com (Christopher C. Stacy) wants to know:
 >> 
 >>>>>>> On 5 Sep 2003 07:58:20 -0800, Arthur T Murray ("Arthur") writes:
 >> [the same weird "AI" messages in all kinds of newsgroups daily]
 >> 
 >> I've just got to ask this: are you, in fact, a program?

>>>>> On 5 Sep 2003 09:42:47 -0800, Arthur T Murray ("Arthur") writes:
 >> [a volumenous canned response suggesting that he might be]
 Arthur> Another theory is that Mentifex is a person (or WAS) who
 Arthur> created an AI programmed to post and respond to mail.
 Arthur> Also perhaps to crawl the Web, searching for any reference
 Arthur> to itself or areas that sound "right" for it, then generating
 Arthur> posts and ripostes.

So, I'll take that as a "Yes" -- "Arthur T Murray" (aka Mentifex) 
is a trivial program, similar to ELIZA, designed to spam newsgroups.
Or someone with a lot of time on their hands doing it semi-automated.