Software Learns From Users
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19782/?a=f
A massive AI project called CALO could revolutionize machine learning.
By Erica Naone
Technology Review
The thing that makes computers a huge pain for everybody, says Pedro Domingos, an associate
professor of computer science at the University of Washington, is that you have to explain to them every
little detail of what they need to do. "It's really annoying," Domingos jokes. "They're stupid."
That's why Domingos is taking part in CALO, a massive, four-year-old artificial-intelligence project to
help computers understand the intentions of their human users. Funded by the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and coordinated by SRI International, based in Menlo Park, CA,
the project brings together researchers from 25 universities and corporations, in many areas of artificial
intelligence, including machine learning, natural-language processing, and Semantic Web technologies.
Each group works on pieces of CALO, which stands for "cognitive assistant that learns and organizes."
Adam Cheyer, program director of the artificial-intelligence center at SRI, explains that CALO tries to
assist users in three ways: by helping them manage information about key people and projects, by
understanding and organizing information from meetings, and by learning and automating routine tasks.
For example, CALO can learn about the people and projects that are important to a user's work life by
paying attention to e-mail patterns. It can then categorize and prioritize information for the user, based
on the source of the information and the projects to which it is connected. The system can also apply
this type of understanding to meetings, using its speech-recognition system to make a transcription of
what's said there, and its understanding of the user's projects and contacts to process the transcription
intelligently into to-do lists and appointments.
Next
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/19782/?a=f
A massive AI project called CALO could revolutionize machine learning.
By Erica Naone
Technology Review
The thing that makes computers a huge pain for everybody, says Pedro Domingos, an associate
professor of computer science at the University of Washington, is that you have to explain to them every
little detail of what they need to do. "It's really annoying," Domingos jokes. "They're stupid."
That's why Domingos is taking part in CALO, a massive, four-year-old artificial-intelligence project to
help computers understand the intentions of their human users. Funded by the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and coordinated by SRI International, based in Menlo Park, CA,
the project brings together researchers from 25 universities and corporations, in many areas of artificial
intelligence, including machine learning, natural-language processing, and Semantic Web technologies.
Each group works on pieces of CALO, which stands for "cognitive assistant that learns and organizes."
Adam Cheyer, program director of the artificial-intelligence center at SRI, explains that CALO tries to
assist users in three ways: by helping them manage information about key people and projects, by
understanding and organizing information from meetings, and by learning and automating routine tasks.
For example, CALO can learn about the people and projects that are important to a user's work life by
paying attention to e-mail patterns. It can then categorize and prioritize information for the user, based
on the source of the information and the projects to which it is connected. The system can also apply
this type of understanding to meetings, using its speech-recognition system to make a transcription of
what's said there, and its understanding of the user's projects and contacts to process the transcription
intelligently into to-do lists and appointments.
Next
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