Toil and trouble: How 'Macbeth' could teach computers to think - The Boston Globe

Patrick Winston's computer is learning about revenge, ambition, and murder. It knows that victory can make you happy. But it also knows you can't be happy if you're dead. The computer had to learn these things in order to read "Macbeth" -- or, rather, an extremely truncated version of Shakespeare's blood-soaked Scottish tragedy. At just 37 sentences, the rough summary reduces the Bard's immortal poetics to such clunkers as, "Witches had visions and danced" and "Lady Macbeth has bad dreams."