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U.S. Plan For "Thinking Machines" Repository
An anonymous reader writes "Information scientists organized by the US's NIST say they will create a "concept bank" that programmers can use to build thinking machines that reason about complex problems at the frontiers of knowledge — from advanced manufacturing to biomedicine. The agreement by ontologists — experts in word meanings and in using appropriate words to build actionable machine commands — outlines the critical functions of the Open Ontology Repository (OOR). More on the summit that produced the agreement here."
The guys at cyc (look for wikipedia entry too) are already halfway there. Last time i checked there were already something like 5 million facts and rules in the database, and the point where new facts could be gathered automatically from the internet was very close.
Many years ago i remember the founder (Doug Lenat) saying that practical purpose intelligence could be reached at ten million facts....
we'll see within the next decade, i guess.
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
That's the frightening part.
Next time you find a bidirectional trail of ants in your home, try this little experiment:
1) Monitor a 6-inch square. For the next 5 minutes, kill every ant entering that square. Use the same piece of paper towel and smear their guts a bit when you squish 'em.
2) After 5 minutes, stop killing ants. Just watch individual ants for the next 30 minutes.
3) Go to sleep. Look around the house 24-72 hours later. You'll find a completely different ant trail.
"A human is smart. A mob of humans is dumb."
- Men in Black
Ants don't work like that.
"An ant is stupid. A colony of ants is smart."
Ants taught me what the word alien meant.