This AI can pass a 12th-grade standardized science test

Last week, researchers at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence demonstrated in a new paper that an AI they'd designed could ace an eighth-grade multiple-choice science test with more than 90 percent correct answers -- and do quite well on a 12th-grade science test, too, with more than 80 percent correct answers. The system, called Aristo, took the New York Regents Science Exam (a standardized test for students across New York State), with a few limitations: it didn't have to solve the problems that involved looking at diagrams. Nonetheless, the researchers tested the program on different versions of the test as well as on tests from different years and found that its performance was pretty consistent: It's an A student. Aristo demonstrates how quickly AI is advancing. As recently as 2016, the paper's authors note, no one in the field could manage to score as well as 60 percent on a similar eighth-grade science exam.