Show J C4— The Herald Journal Logan Utah Wednesday July 10 2002 ©ana ©©mnponti©!?© D$ra ©®pnfDin ssjods©! Investors think so and have put up $60 million to find out ' 9 AUSTIN Texas (AP) — Day after day since 1984 teams of programmers linguists theologians mathematicians ana philosophers have plugged away at a $60 ' million project they hope will transform human existence: teaching a computer common They have been feeding a database named Cyc 14 million truths and generalities about daily life so it can automatically make assumptions humans make: Creatures that die stay dead Dogs have spines Scaling a cliff requires intense physical effort Though sane critics question the potential of this painstaking effort the inventors believe Cyc will form the brains of computers with supercharged reasoning abilities — which could help us week more efficiently make us understand each other better and even help us predict die previously unforeseeable Cyc (pronounced "psych") has already helped Lycos generate more relevant results on its Internet search engine The military which has invested $25 million in Cyc is testing it as an intelligence mlinthe war against terrorism Companies use Cyc to unify disparate databases and are examining a new application that warns when computer networks have vulnerabilities hackers can exploit This spring the developers' company Cycprp Inc sent their creation off for some higher education creating a Web link to let the public download Cyc’s knowledge base and teach it things too Cycorp's founder and president Doug Lenat believes that if enough people Jog in to share more of the world's collective wisdom Cyc quickly will become vastly more useful For now Cyc is just ajew hundred megabytes thatcan ”bc stored on a single CD Someday Lena! envisions it becoming standard equipment in computers or being placed ' on a network server to fuel dozens of applications It could annotate to put them in better context for their recipients serve as an instant language translator even offer humans advice from varying points of view "This is the most exciting time we’ve ever seen with the project We stand on the threshold of success" Lenat 51 said recently in Cycorp’s offices in a quiet Austin complex "What people are able basis to do on a could be dramatically increased if we are succesday-by-d- ay sful” Such hopes are not new in artificial intelligence which has to date produced far more disappointment than marvel As early as the 1940s researchers envisioned computers that could hold vast amounts of knowledge learn from experience and reason for themselves The fantasy was most famously depicted ' by HAL the talking computer that operates a spaceship b turns murderous in ”2001: A Space Odyssey” While early artificial intelligence Showed promise it was of limited use beyond specific tasks One 1970s program helped doctors diagnose kinds of meningitis by asking for details about a patient's condition But the program also would determine that a bumed-ocar had meningitis because it hadno way of knowing that was ridiculous Other programs would fail to find anything wrong with a database entry that showed a with 20 years of job experience The problem is that computers are programmed with a series of ironclad statements and human speech is foil of nuance and ambiguity When someone says “Mary and Sue are sisters" we know she probably means the two' are siblings A computer can be taught to' understand that but without proper programming it might also think “Mary ami Sue are mothers” means they are each other’s mothers ut J In 1983 when Lenat was a professor at Stanford University and a researcher for Atari he decided artificial intelligence would go nowhere unless someone took the time to create a catalog of common sense that would let a computer recognize absurdities as well as humans can With colleagues at Microelectronics Computer Corp a technology research consortium Lenat began creating Cyc in 1984 By typing messages in CycL a programming language created especially for Cyc Lenat's team first taught it that there are things in the world and that some are individual (such as the Parthenon) and others are collections (historic sites) The programmers eventually took chunks of text and thought about every assumption the author knew readers would make Upon reading something about how the Duke of Wellington was moved by Napoleon’s death the programmers decided to tell Cyc it could assume Wellington outlived Napoleon knew him when he was alive heard about his death — and soon The goal was not just to fill Cyc with straightforward facts but to "generalize as much as possible until further generalization would be false” Lenat said The result is that if you ask V I !l HI V AP photo Cycorp’s founder and president Doug Lenat beflavea that H enough people log In to share more of the world's collective wisdom Cyc quickly wil become vastly more useful Cyc whether Lassie has a nose it would reason that Lassie is a collie collies are dogs dogs are macroscopic vertebrates and macroscopic vertebrates have noses so yes The researchers also told Cyc to ask questions if it decides it needs more clarity about a concept In 1986 Cyc asked whether it was human That same year it asked whether any other computers woe engaged in such a project Lenat’s team taught Cyc to make sure everything it was told conformed with everything it already knew— a protection that should keep Cyc from being filled with erroneous information during its public education whjch for now is possible only on computers with the Linux operating system Already its knowledge Ask appears Cyc whether might possess anthrax and it wtil tell you it presumes you are not referring to tire heavy-metband Anthrax wide-rangin-g al i t And lots of room to use them (like the entire states of Idaho Utah Colorado & Wyoming) Thanks to you I i Thanks for support To the editor I would like to thank my family friends and supporters for their generous time an efforts assisting me in my campaign for Cache County Attorney I appreciate than running a dean campaign in by bebalf I airo appreciate the voters who had the confidence in my ability to be a successful county attorney I wish air of my supporters the best in their individual future endeav- ore The New PCS Free & Clear Plan e Area-wid- for the Northern Utah area Nationwide Long Distance included ' JohnD Sairge -- I Logan i12W$ Now staying in touch is easier than ever You i 100J wstant savings can call to anywhere in the USfrom anywhere in your extended calling area while on our PCS network reaching more than 230 million "people nationwide Plus long distance is included every minute every day on afl calls This plan includes a one-ye- ar PCS t'r v for providing 1 The Herald Journal during the 2001-200- 2 school year to students in Daryl Guymon’s class at "Woodruff Elementary ' : i' v - 'v-- ' v " j - i V-- ' ' ' CaU Tbellenld Journal at 752-21or (883) 259-76- "I ' took Muimploco I (OSIRMSH L- t f i i ' i F i vr 77- ' VsV - '777 v’7 ' J f ' "A a ‘t r'V - y- t f 7‘ -' UKCMra aWIMiMl MU £i Mil KIWI I OI V f 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AS right wiRmfaprint Rid tfwARW0iitlPa end medwr Sprint WO r S - : ' i SI - s - v- t -' T MHtHSmilH I 31 21 ' r Dracmmt - : ' Herald Journal V a- ' s'! 'j Newspaper in Education r 'a'1 h V l ” xt - ' ll'Vi"- - n' v v ' ts W©® 'Vj'vi V! ' f ' ' v new Save $100 instantly when you purchase any PCS Phone ami activate oriany-PCService Phil See details below i 7 PCS Phono byLS modolSZSO Advantage Agreement v Save 100 4 2999 'k- - 'A X ' - i lil ' ' 7 — l I v ' ’ r t I mimil ’'i XAy v' f ' ’ ' ' ' V1'-- " — i v ' t |