Human as a Second Language: Succeeding with the Natural Language Toolkit
| Project: | Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) | ||||
The Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) suite offers powerful tools for natural language processing and analysis. Like many other code libraries, it enables programmers to achieve results when working with data they may not be an expert in the handling of - in this case, human language. The NLTK is particularly valuable as human language skills are in general something programmers can get along without, and therefore they are likely to be ill-equipped with the tools to most effectively work with language data. However, while NLTK provides programmers with a way to work with all the relevant parts of language without needing to rely on their own grammar skills, there are many concepts in the field of natural language processing that require basic comprehension of natural language operation, which may make knowing where to start working with the NLTK difficult for the average programmer.
This presentation will demonstrate some of the NLTK's powerful and impressive features, while covering the concepts that will enable any programmer to work cool tricks on natural language. The application of the NLTK to a very basic artificial intelligence will be shown.
Elyse Marie Glina
Elyse is a former reluctant gifted child with an interest in learning and using all languages used by both humans and computers - but a particular passion for being productive in Python. Her Honours research work poorly continued the fine tradition of conversation agents such as ELIZA, through the development of a framework for constructing conversation agents within any desired domain. She has since decided this avenue of research may be the work of the devil. She is currently working on a Ph.D at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, in the pursuit of which she spends her time seeking to prove that artificial intelligences are problematic for the development of humans and human society, while simultaneously working on developing them. In her spare time she likes to install operating systems of all lineages in her endless quest to confuse operating system elitism.
