Future Watch: A.I. comes of age

Description

After decades of limited application, artificial intelligence is everywhere. And it really works this time -

"Stair, please fetch the stapler from the lab," says the man seated at a conference room table. The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Robot, standing nearby, replies in a nasal monotone, "I will get the stapler for you."

Stair pivots and wheels into the adjacent lab, avoiding a number of obstacles on the way. Its stereoscopic camera eyes swivel back and forth, taking in the contents of the room. It seems to think for a moment, then approaches a table for a closer look at an oblong metallic object. Its articulated arm reaches out, swivels here and there, and then gently picks up the stapler with long, rubber-clad fingers. It heads back to the conference room.

"Here is your stapler," says Stair, handing it to the man. "Have a nice day."

Today, AI systems can perform useful work in "a very large and complex world," Horvitz says. "Because these small [software] agents don't have a complete representation of the world, they are uncertain about their actions. So they learn to understand the probabilities of various things happening, they learn the preferences [of users] and costs of outcomes and, perhaps most important, they are becoming self-aware."

AI: What's different now?

* Ubiquitous computing and more-powerful computers
* Huge amounts of data from the Internet and physical sensors
* Algorithms that learn and improve over time
* Software that's able to deal with uncertainty, incompleteness and surprises
* Software agents that can weigh costs and benefits
* Integration of separate fields such as speech, vision, robotics, sensors and machine learning

Original URL

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=332273

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