Categorizing Words and Category Values

Question

We were set an algorithm problem in class today, as a \"if you figure out a solution you don\'t have to do this subject\". SO of course, we all thought we will give it a go.

Answer 1

This sounds like you could use some sort of Bayesian classification as it is used in spam filtering. But this would still require "external data" in the form of some sort of text base that provides context.

Without that, the problem is impossible to solve. It's not an algorithm problem, it's an AI problem. But even AI (and natural intelligence as well, for that matter) needs some sort of input to learn from.

I suspect that the professor is giving you an impossible problem to make you understand at what different levels you can think about a problem.

The key question here is: who decides what a "correct" classification is? What is this decision based on? How could this decision be reproduced programmatically, and what input data would it need?