In Brief

We have come far in our pursuit of the perfect computer companion. From mastering gamestorunning our homes, artificial intelligence (AI)has been steadily improving.

However,Microsoft co-founder and richest person in the world Bill Gates isnt that impressed. While he does note that we have made some advancements, he stated in his redditAMAthat he believes that the big milestone is when computers can read and understand information like humans do.

Moreover, he stated that right now computers dont know how to represent knowledge so they cant read a text book and pass a test.

While Gates doesnt highlight this as a particular failure of AI, he does insinuate that we have much fartherto go in terms of the new technology. With that said, many companies have developed systems that are racing to the top, such as Alphabets DeepMind andGoogleBrain, Microsofts many projects, FAIR (Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research), and IBMs Watson, to just name a few.

But of the technologies and companies mentioned, the AIsystems lack the ability to represent knowledge. Essentially, knowledge representation is the ability of AI to glean information about the world that it can then use to solve complicated problems. It would mean artificial intelligence could reason about the world rather than just solely taking action within it, similar to how humans problem solve. This is what Bill Gates believes our current AI systems are lacking.

While we have programs that dont just best professional players in their games of choice but dominate them, our current AI is not capable of representing knowledge, a difficult task but an important one. However, the companies mentioned above are putting significant time and money into developing their technologies and are getting closer to this important milestone in AI. Perhaps we wont have to wait too much longer for thatperfect computer companion.

Go here to see the original:

Bill Gates: This Will Be the Biggest Technological Breakthrough of ... - Futurism