'Rich interaction' may make computers a partner, not a product
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Date posted: 19/08/2009
Posted by: Site Administration
This story is from the category
 Artificial Intelligence

n the movie "2010," while trying to salvage the mission to Jupiter, the Hal 9000 computer noted, "I enjoy working with human beings, and have stimulating relationships with them."

Well, 2010 is just around the corner, and as usual Hollywood was a little ahead of its time - but in this case, not by much. Oregon State University researchers are pioneering the concept of "rich interaction" - computers that do, in fact, want to communicate with, learn from and get to know you better as a person.

The idea behind this "meaningful" interaction is one of the latest advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, in which a computer doesn't just try to learn from its own experiences, it listens to the user, tries to combine what it "hears" with its internal reasoning, and changes its program as a result. When ordinary users spot the machine's errors they should be able to step in and explain directly to the machine the logic it should be using.

"There are limits to what the computer can do just by its own observations and efforts to learn from experiences," said Margaret Burnett, an associate professor of computer science at OSU. "It needs to understand not just what it did right or wrong, but why. And for that, it has to continue interacting with human beings and make constant changes in its own programming, based on their feedback."

OSU researchers say that many advanced learning systems begin learning the moment they are delivered to an end user's desktop in an effort to customize themselves to the end user. Systems like this are the basis of spam filters on personal computers, e-mail sorting, product recommendation - "If you liked this book, here's another one you might find interesting."

See the full Story via external site: www.physorg.com