Prolog Is Past

With apologies to Shakespeare, the correct quote is “What’s past is prologue,” which eloquently says events and actions of today shape and foreshadow the world of tomorrow.

Prolog is an AI language of the past, and I had a little fun with it in the 1980s. I have long forgotten the language syntax, but do remember the program I wrote to answer a juvenile question: “If God’s power is infinite, can he create a boulder he cannot move?”

On the screen appeared the answer I expected: “Undefined.”

I shrugged, and was just a little disappointed the computer didn’t crash or blow up, not realizing then, that “undefined” was a very good, if not the best possible answer.

Entering the prompt today into Duck.ai / ChatGPT-4o, I was amused by its answer:

A second attempt produced some paragraphs describing the nature of omnipotence and the logical paradoxes it can bring. The essay could have been written by a high school senior.

In contrast, the single word answer from 1980s Prolog resembled the actions of a Zen Master who responds with riddles (or a whack to the head) in an effort to guide you to your own enlightenment. Older now, I can imagine Prolog was prompting me to recognize that I was asking the wrong question.

Of course, Prolog isn’t a Zen Master any more than ChatGPT4o is a high school senior. But it’s noteworthy that despite ChatGPT-4o being generations ahead of Prolog, I find the answer from Prolog much more satisfying. It’s a matter of perspective.

Prolog is past, and past is prologue. AI will have arrived when it can answer the “God Boulder” question with “undefined,” but for real.