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PHVS1CS QF THE IMPOSSIBLE
ally, if Lenat succeeds in this, CYC may actually be more intelligent
than most tabloid readers!)
One of the goals of CYC is to attain "breakeven," that is, the point
at which a robot will be able to understand enough so that it can digest
new information on its own simply by reading magazines and books
found in any library. At that point, like a baby bird leaving the nest,
CYC will be able to flap its wings and take off on its own.
But since the firm's founding in 1984, its credibility has suffered
from a common problem in AI: making predictions that generate
headlines but are wildly unrealistic. Lenat predicted that in ten years,
by 1994, CYC would contain 30 to 50 percent of "consensus reality." Today CYC is not even close. As the scientists of Cycorp have found out,
millions and millions of lines of code need to be programmed in order
for a computer to approximate the common sense of a four-year-old
child. So far the latest version of the CYC program contains only a paltry 47,000 concepts and 306,000 facts. Despite Cycorp's regularly optimistic press releases, one of Lenat's coworkers, R. V. Guha, who left the
team in 1994, was quoted as saying, "CYC is generally viewed as a
failed project
We were killing ourselves trying to create a pale
shadow of what had been promised."
In other words, attempts to program all the laws of common sense
into a single computer have floundered, simply because there are so
many laws of common sense. Humans learn these laws effortlessly because we tediously continue to bump into the environment throughout
our lives, quietly assimilating the laws of physics and biology, but robots do not.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates admits, "It has been much harder
than expected to enable computers and robots to sense their surrounding environment and to react quickly and accurately... for example,
the abilities to orient themselves with respect to the objects in a room,
to respond to sounds and interpret speech, and to grasp objects of varying sizes, textures, and fragility. Even something as simple as telling
the difference between an open door and a window can be devilishly
tricky for a robot."
Proponents of the top-down approach to artificial intelligence,
PHVS1CS QF THE IMPOSSIBLE
ally, if Lenat succeeds in this, CYC may actually be more intelligent
than most tabloid readers!)
One of the goals of CYC is to attain "breakeven," that is, the point
at which a robot will be able to understand enough so that it can digest
new information on its own simply by reading magazines and books
found in any library. At that point, like a baby bird leaving the nest,
CYC will be able to flap its wings and take off on its own.
But since the firm's founding in 1984, its credibility has suffered
from a common problem in AI: making predictions that generate
headlines but are wildly unrealistic. Lenat predicted that in ten years,
by 1994, CYC would contain 30 to 50 percent of "consensus reality." Today CYC is not even close. As the scientists of Cycorp have found out,
millions and millions of lines of code need to be programmed in order
for a computer to approximate the common sense of a four-year-old
child. So far the latest version of the CYC program contains only a paltry 47,000 concepts and 306,000 facts. Despite Cycorp's regularly optimistic press releases, one of Lenat's coworkers, R. V. Guha, who left the
team in 1994, was quoted as saying, "CYC is generally viewed as a
failed project
We were killing ourselves trying to create a pale
shadow of what had been promised."
In other words, attempts to program all the laws of common sense
into a single computer have floundered, simply because there are so
many laws of common sense. Humans learn these laws effortlessly because we tediously continue to bump into the environment throughout
our lives, quietly assimilating the laws of physics and biology, but robots do not.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates admits, "It has been much harder
than expected to enable computers and robots to sense their surrounding environment and to react quickly and accurately... for example,
the abilities to orient themselves with respect to the objects in a room,
to respond to sounds and interpret speech, and to grasp objects of varying sizes, textures, and fragility. Even something as simple as telling
the difference between an open door and a window can be devilishly
tricky for a robot."
Proponents of the top-down approach to artificial intelligence,