IP: Birth of a Thinking Machine

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: "the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow" <geoff () iconia com>
> To: "Dave E-mail Pamphleteer Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu>
> Subject: Birth of a Thinking Machine
> Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 11:58:38 +0200
>
>
> Birth of a Thinking Machine
>
> For 17 years, a team has been trying to develop the most sophisticated
> artificial intelligence system ever. This summer, the public will be able to
> see its work.
>
> By MICHAEL A. HILTZIK, Times Staff Writer
>
>      AUSTIN, Texas--Popular culture has long held strong opinions about what
> the world's smartest machine should look like. There's the unblinking red
> eye of HAL, the brilliant, homicidal computer of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A
> Space Odyssey"; the gilded humanoids of pulp sci-fi; and the flashing lights
> and gleaming boxes of countless doomsday scenarios.
>
> But it's a safe bet that nobody has imagined artificial intelligence the way
> it is taking shape inside a low-slung brown brick building hidden deep
> within a leafy research park north of town. Yet here beats the heart of the
> system known as Cyc.
>
>      For 17 years a small band of engineers and programmers has been slaving
> away at the task of teaching Cyc much of what a human being knows. (The name
> comes from "encyclopedia" and is pronounced "psych.") The idea, as
> articulated by the project's creator, computer scientist Douglas B. Lenat,
> has been to create the most sophisticated artificial intelligence system
> ever devised--the closest a computer has come to replicating the human
> brain's reasoning, learning ability and perhaps even its consciousness.
>
> --SNIP--
>
> http://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/lat_cyc010621.htm
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> geoff.goodfellow () iconia com, Prague CZ * tel/mobil +420 (0)603 706 558
> "success is getting what you want & happiness is wanting what you get"
> http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/01/biztech/articles/17drop.html



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