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A Peek Inside DARPA's Current Projects
dthomas731 writes to tell us that Computerworld has a brief article on some of DARPA's current projects. From the article: "Later in the program, Holland says, PAL will be able to 'automatically watch a conversation between two people and, using natural-language processing, figure out what are the tasks they agreed upon.' At that point, perhaps DARPA's PAL could be renamed HAL, for Hearing Assistant That Learns. The original HAL, in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, tells the astronauts how it knows they're plotting to disconnect it: 'Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.'"
Here's a LOT of stuff to look through....don't tell anyone ;-)
Top Secret Stuff at DARPA. [DARPA]
The DoD funds a huge percentage of AI research, but at the end of the day they're interested in things that can be easily weaponized or used for simple intelligence sifting heuristics. The most fundamentally interesting research in AI is in the humanoid robotics projects such as those at the MIT shop, and it is from these more humanly-modeled projects that anything like HAL could ever issue. Search-digest heuristics like PAL aren't much like humans and will never lead to anything approching a human's contextually rich understanding of the world at large any more than really advanced racecar design will lead to interstellar craft.
The difference, as Searle would say, between Strong (humanlike) AI and Weak (software widget like) AI is a difference of type, not scale.
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
DARPA: We don't make the things that kill people. We make the things that kill people better. DARPA: We bring good things to life... that are then used to kill people. DARPA: Who do you want to kill today?
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
So, I wiollen have given myself the plans tomorrow so that I wiollen be submitting them a few years ago to get the grant money.
There, fixed that for you.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
This would only work for conversations between people of the same sex. There has never been a conversation between a man and a woman in which both participants would agree on the tasks...
M: Want to continue this conversation at my place?
F: Take a leap!
Computer: Agreed to move conversation to male's residence by leaping.
F: When are you going to mow the lawn?
M: Yeah, I'll get right on that.
Computer: Male agreed to mow lawn at earliest opportunity