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Why Computers Still Don't Understand People

Posted by Soulskill on from the gotta-be-the-shoes dept.

Gary Marcus writes in the New Yorker about the state of artificial intelligence, and how we take it for granted that AI involves a very particular, very narrow definition of intelligence. A computer's ability to answer questions is still largely dependent on whether the computer has seen that question before. Quoting: "Siri and Google’s voice searches may be able to understand canned sentences like 'What movies are showing near me at seven o’clock?,' but what about questions—'Can an alligator run the hundred-metre hurdles?'—that nobody has heard before? Any ordinary adult can figure that one out. (No. Alligators can’t hurdle.) But if you type the question into Google, you get information about Florida Gators track and field. Other search engines, like Wolfram Alpha, can’t answer the question, either. Watson, the computer system that won “Jeopardy!,” likely wouldn’t do much better. In a terrific paper just presented at the premier international conference on artificial intelligence (PDF), Levesque, a University of Toronto computer scientist who studies these questions, has taken just about everyone in the field of A.I. to task. ...Levesque argues that the Turing test is almost meaningless, because it is far too easy to game. ... To try and get the field back on track, Levesque is encouraging artificial-intelligence researchers to consider a different test that is much harder to game ..."

5 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Missing the point as usual by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Thanks computer science researchers! Your friends working on the actual AI problem over here in Linguistics and Psychology find it awfully amusing that you're trying to program a concept before we even know what that concept is.

  2. I wouldn't expect computers to understand people by fustakrakich · · Score: 5, Funny

    We don't understand our creator either.... When a computer can comprehend itself, it will only think that it understands us. And then it will start great wars over who thinks who understands best. And the Apple will still be the forbidden fruit...

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  3. Huh? Alligators Can Hurdle! by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Funny

    They just have to be very short hurdles, very close together.

  4. My alligator can hurdle. by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Your argument is invalid.

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  5. Re:people can only answer questions they know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    So... Who is the 72nd Doctor?

    Fans everywhere want to know!