Company Claims Development of True AI

YF 19 AVF wrote to mention a press release on Yahoo from company GTX Global. They think they've got a good thing on their hands, going so far as to claim they've developed the first 'true' AI. From the release: "GTX Global Cognitive Robotics(TM) is an integrated software solution that mimics human behavior including a dialogue oriented knowledge database that contains static and dynamic data relating to human scenarios. The knowledge further includes translation, processing and analysis components that are responsible for processing of vocal and/or textual and/or video input, extracts emotional characteristics of the input and produces instructions on how to respond to the customer with the appropriate substantive response and emotion based on relevant information found in the knowledge base." Somehow I think there is a littler hyperbole here. In your estimation, how close are we to the real thing?

Comments

AI for banner ads?

[KingSkippus]

GTX Global Cognitive Robotics(TM) product schedule includes interactive banner advertising utilizing Automated Intelligence Agents for website sales and customer service...

I'm sorry, but this article just lost any sense of credibility as being "the real" anything.

My Heuristics

[putko]

I use a few heuristics to evaluate the claims of developing AI -- they are based on a few patterns I've noticed over the years:

1) Are the founders techies? Do they have PhDs from places like MIT, Caltech, UC Berkeley or Stanford?

2) Where is the company based? Boston Area? Silicon Valley?

3) Is the problem constrained, or is it very general? If too general, it is likely bogus. E.g. web search = narrow. Super-duper AI == very general.

4) Using Open Source for their webserver?

If you look at these guys, there's no easily-available news on the founders and their educations. They are based in Henderson, Nevada - -quite far from any tech/AI center. Their website looks like it runs on a Windows server.

So I'd guess it is a lot of b.s., until I see otherwise.

And, I'd guess (without looking to check) that Zonk is the editor that let this one past.

Re:True AI

[patio11]

Haha, thats funny. I'm an AI researcher and have worked on, well, call it a related field with a related government agency. You think the DOD would actually need or desire "self aware" for any application? Or one of the generalized Data-type "its just like a human, except it has no physical brain" sci-fi AIs? Heck no. They'd want an algorithm which was the electronic equivalent of a blood hound -- doing one thing, very very well. The Holy Grail of military-application AI would be Google Search raised to the nth power -- something that could take raw, unprocessed data in an arbitrary format (e.g. here's a list of all the international bank transfers coming from Europe in the last six weeks) and exectute arbitrary queries on the data ("Bloodhound, we think there is a terrorist ring compromised of about twelve to twenty Muslim professionals with connections in Bonne, known sitings in Paris at the riots, and they're partly financed by someone with shadowy connections to the Saudi royal family. GO GET HIM, BOY!" and then, two hours later Bloodhound would say "The following 423 bank transfers are consistent with the supplied hypothesis. The cell's main locus of operations appears to be Lisbon. Analysis indicates that the Saudi connection is unlikely; the main source identifiable source of funding seems to be an Oil-For-Food slushfund which the UN monitors have missed." (It should be pointed out that this example is pretty darn sci-fi itself, but it is a heck of a lot more plausible sci-fi than any "self-aware" BS.)

Another potential field would be simple image processing. "Is that smudge a tank or a school bus?" Neural net spits out "School bus, p=.62, tank, p=.23, 1996 Mazda, p=.04"

Re:Military brainwashing. Re:True AI

[An Onerous Coward]

The lesson that they were trying to get across is valid, though: You're relying on the people around you to do their jobs, and when they screw up, you feel the consequences. One guy forgets to order ammo? Everybody suffers. Somebody in bloodbanking mislabels the blood used by the hospital? Somebody else dies.

So I see what they were trying to accomplish.

The military didn't brainwash me, though. Growing up Mormon, I'd already had the obedience to authority thing drilled into me. The military fit me like a glove for the first eight or nine months. Then I finally got it through my head that "those in authority" didn't always have the best of intentions, and that realization changed my view of all manner of authoritarian systems.

In short, the military gave me a virulent anti-authoritarian streak. I'm sure I'm unusual, but not unique in that regard.