Roadblocks

AI's Roadblocks

"In recent years the mushrooming power, functionality and ubiquity of computers and the Internet have outstripped early forecasts about technology’s rate of advancement and usefulness in everyday life." - Hans Moravec

"There is a set of clear-cut challenges, all centering around knowledge, that have received insufficient attention in AI, and whose solution could bring the realization of Turing’s dream – the dream of a machine we can talk with just like a person, and which is therefore (at least) our intellectual equal." - Lenhart Schubert

Image from Tracy Lee Carroll on Flickr.

AI Overview

Contents

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Good Starting Places

Publication

Rise of the Robots--The Future of Artificial Intelligence

By 2050 robot "brains" based on computers that execute 100 trillion instructions per second will start rivaling human intelligence. "I am convinced that the decades-old dream of a useful, general-purpose autonomous robot will be realized in the not too distant future. By 2010 we will see mobile robots as big as people but with cognitive abilities similar in many respects to those of a lizard. The machines will be capable of carrying out simple chores, such as vacuuming, dusting, delivering packages and taking out the garbage. By 2040, I believe, we will finally achieve the original goal of robotics and a thematic mainstay of science fiction: a freely moving machine with the intellectual capabilities of a human being."

Source

Mar 23 2009, By Moravec, Hans
Publication

Turing’s Dream and the Knowledge Challenge

There is a set of clear-cut challenges, all centering around knowledge, that have received insufficient attention in AI, and whose solution could bring the realization of Turing’s dream – the dream of a machine we can talk with just like a person, and which is therefore (at least) our intellectual equal. These challenges have to do with the representation of linguistically expressible knowledge, the role of knowledge in language understanding, the use of knowledge for several sorts of commonsense reasoning, and knowledge accumulation. Concerning the last topic, I briefly present preliminary results of some of our recent efforts to extract “shallow” general knowledg

Source

By Schubert, Lenhart, 2006
Publication

AI’s greatest trends and controversies

... we have asked a set of distinguished scholars and practitioners who were involved in AI’s formative stages to describe, in just a few paragraphs, the most notable trend or controversy (or nontrend or noncontroversy) during AI’s development.

Source

By Hearst, M. A. & Haym Hirsh, 2000
collection, interview

General Readings

AI in the News

Will supercomputing intelligences outsmart human-level intelligence?

Three panelists presented alternate views on the Singularity at the SXSW conference in Austin this week, and blogger Michael Anissimov neatly summarized them. A few excerpts: Natasha Vita-More: “The very same technology that proposes to build superintelligences could also dramatically enhance human cognition…. The coincidental and subsequent developments of inventive projects arrived at through digital media, virtuality, and immersivity have furthered the scope of human experiential enhancement as artificial intelligence technologies are fostering arguably viable developments. Could the human become a super AI?” Doug Lenat: “The bottleneck is software, not hardware….

Source

Mar 18 2011
interview, singularity
Video

Claims and Challenges in Evaluating Human-Level Intelligent Systems

The paper on which this AGI-09 (2nd conference on Artificial General Intelligence) presentation by John Laird is based represents a first step in attempting to engage the research community in discussions about evaluation of human-level intelligent systems. First, we discuss the challenges of evaluating human-level intelligent systems. Second, we explore the different types of claims that are made about HLI systems, which are the basis for confirmatory evaluations. Finally, we briefly discuss a range of experimental designs that support the evaluation of claims.

Source

12 min, 2009, AGI
Publication

Artificial Intelligence: What Works and What Doesn't?

AI has been well supported by government research and development dollars for decades now, and people are beginning to ask hard questions: What really works? What are the limits? What doesn't work as advertised? What isn't likely to work? What isn't affordable? This article holds a mirror up to the community, both to provide feedback and stimulate more self-assessment. The significant accomplishments and strengths of the field are highlighted. The research agenda, strategy, and heuristics are reviewed, and a change of course is recommend-ed to improve the field's ability to produce reusable and interoperable components.

 

 

Source

By Hayes-Roth, Frederick , 1997
overview
Publication

The Current State of Al: One Man’s Opinion

Source

By Schank, Roger C., 1983
classic
Publication

Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence

... The literature does not include any general discussion of the outstanding problems of this field. In this article, an attempt will be made to separate out, analyze, and find the relations between some of these problems. Analysis will be supported with enough examples from the literature to serve the introductory function of a review article, but there remains much relevant work not described here.

Source

By Minsky, M., 1961
classic

Exhibits and Collections

Publication

Heuristic Programming: Ill Structured Problems

Source

By Newell, A. , 1969
classic
Publication

Limitations of the current stock of ideas about problem solving

Source

By Newell, A. , 1965
classic
Publication

Can a Mechanical Chess-player Outplay its Designer?

Source

By Ashby, W. Ross , 1952
classic

News

AI in the News

Will supercomputing intelligences outsmart human-level intelligence?

Three panelists presented alternate views on the Singularity at the SXSW conference in Austin this week, and blogger Michael Anissimov neatly summarized them. A few excerpts: Natasha Vita-More: “The very same technology that proposes to build superintelligences could also dramatically enhance human cognition…. The coincidental and subsequent developments of inventive projects arrived at through digital media, virtuality, and immersivity have furthered the scope of human experiential enhancement as artificial intelligence technologies are fostering arguably viable developments. Could the human become a super AI?” Doug Lenat: “The bottleneck is software, not hardware….

Source

Mar 18 2011
interview, singularity

Videos

Video

Claims and Challenges in Evaluating Human-Level Intelligent Systems

The paper on which this AGI-09 (2nd conference on Artificial General Intelligence) presentation by John Laird is based represents a first step in attempting to engage the research community in discussions about evaluation of human-level intelligent systems. First, we discuss the challenges of evaluating human-level intelligent systems. Second, we explore the different types of claims that are made about HLI systems, which are the basis for confirmatory evaluations. Finally, we briefly discuss a range of experimental designs that support the evaluation of claims.

Source

12 min, 2009, AGI

Classic Articles & Books

Publication

The Current State of Al: One Man’s Opinion

Source

By Schank, Roger C., 1983
classic
Publication

Heuristic Programming: Ill Structured Problems

Source

By Newell, A. , 1969
classic
Publication

Limitations of the current stock of ideas about problem solving

Source

By Newell, A. , 1965
classic
Publication

Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence

... The literature does not include any general discussion of the outstanding problems of this field. In this article, an attempt will be made to separate out, analyze, and find the relations between some of these problems. Analysis will be supported with enough examples from the literature to serve the introductory function of a review article, but there remains much relevant work not described here.

Source

By Minsky, M., 1961
classic
Publication

Can a Mechanical Chess-player Outplay its Designer?

Source

By Ashby, W. Ross , 1952
classic

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