Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
NELL Computer Learns To Surf The Web For Facts
NELL is a Never-Ending Language Learner, a computer system created at Carnegie Mellon University. The intent is to design a machine learning system that is able to extract structured information from the wild and untamed (i.e., unstructured) World Wide Web.
NELL surfs the web even more than you do - 24 hours per day, every day, learning to read better each day. It tries to extract new instances of categories and relations. "In other words, [it tries to] find noun phrases that represent new examples of the input categories (e.g., "Barack Obama" is a person and politician), and find pairs of noun phrases that correspond to instances of the input relations (e.g., the pair "Jason Giambi" and "Yankees" is an instance of the playsOnTeam relation). These new instances are added to the growing knowledge base of structured beliefs."
The following table is taken from NELL's hundreds of thousands of facts about the Internet, in this case, music varieties. The number at the far left is NELL's confidence in the assessment; as you can see, NELL is 100% certain that these musical categories exist.
(NELL knowledgebase on music facts)
NELL has been in continuous operation since January 2010. For the first 6 months it was allowed to run without human supervision, learning to extract instances of a few hundred categories and relations, resulting in a knowledge base containing approximately a third of a million extracted instances of these categories and relations. At that point, it had improved substantially its ability to read three quarters of these categories and relations (with precision in the range 90% to 99%), but it had become inaccurate in extracting instances of the remaining fourth of the ontology (many had precisions in the range 25% to 60%).The estimated precision of the beliefs it had added to its knowledge base at that point was 71%. We are still trying to understand what causes it to become increasingly competent at reading some types of information, but less accurate over time for others. Beginning in June, 2010, we began periodic review sessions every few weeks in which we would spend about 5 minutes scanning each category and relation. During this 5 minutes, we determined whether NELL was learning to read it fairly correctly, and in case not, we labeled the most blatant errors in the knowledge base. NELL now uses this human feedback in its ongoing training process, along with its own self-labeled examples. In July, a spot test showed the average precision of the knowledge base was approximately 87% over all categories and relations. We continue to add new categories and relations to the ontology over time, as NELL continues learning to populate its growing knowledge base.
NELL certainly has a wider knowledge of music than I have, based on the noun phrases shown above.
Science fiction has a number of examples of computer systems that try to learn more about human beings through analyzing data available on computer systems. One example that comes to mind is Mike from Robert Heinlein's 1966 novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:
When Mike was installed in Luna, he was pure thinkum, a flexible logic - "High-Optional, Logical, Multi-evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV, Mod. L" - a HOLMES FOUR. He computed ballistics for pilotless freighters and controlled their catapult. This kept him busy less than one percent of time and Luna Authority never believed in idle hands. They kept hooking hardware into him - decision-action boxes to let him boss other computers, bank on bank of additional memories, more banks of associational neural nets, another tubful of twelve-digit random numbers, a greatly augmented temporary memory.
Read more at CMU's Read the Web project; also, read the published paper on NELL Toward an Architecture for Never-Ending Language Learning.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/5/2010)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Artificial Intelligence ")
Are The Thought Police Listening To Everyone All The Time?
'... they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to.' - George Orwell, 1948.
Nevada Will Use AI To Decide Worker Benefits
'They had screwed up and been blacklisted by Manna.' - Marshall Brain, 2002.
AI Note-Taking From Google Meet
'... the new typewriter that could be talked to, and which transposed the spoken sound into typed words.' - Dr. David H. Keller, 1934.
Seeing Faces On Grains Of Sand (AI Pareidolia)
'... the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell.' - Schachner and Zagat, 1931.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Mechazilla Arms Catch A Falling Starship, But Check Out SF Landing-ARMS
'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
A System To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
Robot Hand Separate From Robot
'The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Hybrid Wind Solar Devices
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
Is Optimus Autonomous Or Teleoperated?
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
Robot Masseuse Rubs People The Right Way
'The automatic massager began to fumble gently...'
Solar-Powered Space Trains On The Moon
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
Drone Deliveries Instead Of Waiters In Restaurants?
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
Optimus Robot Can Charge Itself
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
Skip Movewear Arc'teryx AI Pants
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
'Robovan' Name Already Taken - Elon, Try These
There are alternative names that are probably in the public domain by now.
How Old Are Tesla Designs?
You be the judge.
Is Your Autonomous Tractor Safe?
'The field-minder finished turning the top-soil of a two-thousand-acre field.'
Smart TVs Are Listening!
'You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard...'
Police Drones In China Would Like To Have A Word With You
''OVERRIDE,' the City Fathers said suddenly, without being asked anything at all.'
Oh Great (Part 2), Fence-Climbing Robots
Please, no stingers.
