Microsoft AI Lab Aims to Give Machines Common Sense

Microsoft is building an artificial intelligence (AI) research hub to speed up the integration of AI into products and services. Harry Shum, executive vice president for Microsoft's AI and research group, spoke about the new lab, called Microsoft Research AI, for the first time this week at an event in the U.K. In a blog post, he wrote that the lab will combine various disciplines -- such as machine learning, perception, and natural language processing -- to develop more sophisticated AI. This integrated approach aims to develop systems that can understand language and take action based on that understanding. Machine reading, which combines AI disciplines such as natural language processing and deep learning, is an example. "We believe AI will be even more helpful when we can create tools that combine those functions and add some of the abilities that come naturally to people," Shum wrote.