Advertisement

Artificial Intelligence is now as smart as a four-year-old

Pitting man versus machine is a concept that has been used in science fiction novels and movies alike for generations. The good ones make us wonder whether artificial intelligence will ever actually be able to compare to the fascinating labyrinth of biochemistry that is the human brain. We can stop wondering now, because scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that is as smart as a four-year-old.

It’s called the ConceptNet 4. It’s built using natural language processing tools which allow it to understand words just like humans do. A separate piece of software allows the ConceptNet 4 to understand questions. Combined together, the machine can come up with the answers to questions in a verbal IQ test.

Results of the study concluded that the machine did well in testing related to vocabulary and being able to judge similarities between things, but not so well in comprehension and in understanding word reasoning. While it is an interesting finding for scientists, artificial intelligence has a long way to go in order to crack the five to seven-year-old level of IQ.

And so continues the human interest in figuring out how to make robots smarter than human beings. Of course the ConceptNet 4 isn’t the first time we’ve gone outside of film and literature and brought these kind of comparisons into the real world.

In 1996, IBM’s Deep Blue became the first ever piece of artificial intelligence to beat a world champion chess player, Garry Kasparov in both an individual chess game and an entire chess match under regular timing rules. The fact that the machine won at chess then inspired IBM to develop and introduce a similar computer named Watson in 2011. Watson competed against two of the most successful contestants to ever play Jeopardy and won.

A lesser-known competition between man and machine took place a year before Deep Blue. 1995 World Scrabble Champion David Boys faced off in a match against a machine called Quackle at the 2006 event in Toronto and lost three out of four games to the machine.

The spirit of competition doesn’t just extend to board games of course. In 2010, the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers posted a video on YouTube of then kicker Joe Nedney taking on a machine by the name of Ziggy in a field goal kicking contest. The 340 pound machine held its own until the two combatants got to the 40 yard line. From that point on, Nedney’s natural abilities proved too much for the football flipping machine.

It’s good to know that at least one human being came out on top in these battles. It proves that robots aren’t quite ready to take over the world just yet. Although once scientists figure out how to improve the IQ of the four-year-old robot, chess players, athletes and trivia nerds everywhere could be in deep trouble.