DARPA Wants to Build Computers With 'Common Sense'
Robert Voight
October 26, 2018
It’s one of the many programs the agency will fund under its $2 billion next-generation artificial intelligence initiative.
Even today’s most advanced artificial intelligence tools lack the common sense that lets humans move through the world, but the Pentagon’s research wing is kicking off a program to instill computers with knowledge people often take for granted.
The Machine Common Sense program, launched Oct. 19 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, will explore multiple methods for teaching computers broad strategies for navigating the world.
Today’s AI tools can only be trained in highly specialized tasks, but through the program, DARPA intends to give the technology a basic, widely applicable toolbox for solving problems. AI with common sense wouldn’t need computer scientists to explicitly tell them, for instance, that gravity always makes objects fall to the ground or living things need food to survive. Like humans, the machine would understand the concepts intuitively.
https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2018/10/darpa-wants-build-computers-common-sense/152353/
