How neuro-symbolic AI might finally make machines reason like humans

If you want a machine to learn to do something intelligent you either have to program it or teach it to learn. For decades, engineers have been programming machines to perform all sorts of tasks -- from software that runs on your personal computer and smartphone to guidance control for space missions. But although computers are generally much faster and more precise than the human brain at sequential tasks, such as adding numbers or calculating chess moves, such programs are very limited in their scope. Something as trivial as identifying a bicycle among a crowded pedestrian street or picking up a hot cup of coffee from a desk and gently moving it to the mouth can send a computer into convulsions, nevermind conceptualizing or abstraction (such as designing a computer itself). The gist is that humans were never programmed (not like a digital computer, at least) -- humans have become intelligent through learning.