{"id":326964,"date":"2021-08-18T13:11:38","date_gmt":"2021-08-18T10:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/computers-suck-at-common-sense-ai-expert-explains-why\/"},"modified":"2021-08-18T13:11:38","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T10:11:38","slug":"computers-suck-at-common-sense-ai-expert-explains-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/computers-suck-at-common-sense-ai-expert-explains-why\/","title":{"rendered":"#Computers suck at \u2018common sense\u2019 \u2014 AI expert explains why"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2ee04a03ee2\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2ee04a03ee2\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/computers-suck-at-common-sense-ai-expert-explains-why\/#Quick_%E2%80%93_define_common_sense\" >Quick \u2013 define common sense<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/computers-suck-at-common-sense-ai-expert-explains-why\/#Common_sense_is_hard_to_compute\" >Common sense is hard to compute<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/computers-suck-at-common-sense-ai-expert-explains-why\/#Transformers_to_the_rescue\" >Transformers to the rescue?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/computers-suck-at-common-sense-ai-expert-explains-why\/#Recognizing_AI_common_sense\" >Recognizing AI common sense<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#Computers suck at \u2018common sense\u2019 \u2014 AI expert explains why<\/strong>&#8221;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image?fit=796%2C417&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2021%2F08%2Frobot-common-sense.jpg&amp;signature=5b27070c2927fc854630ce4272bcf174\" \/><\/p>\n<div>Imagine you\u2019re having friends over for lunch and plan to order a pepperoni pizza. You recall Amy mentioning that Susie had stopped eating meat. You try calling Susie, but when she doesn\u2019t pick up, you decide to play it safe and just order a margherita pizza instead.<\/p>\n<p>People take for granted the ability to deal with situations like these on a regular basis. In reality, in accomplishing these feats, humans are relying on not one but a powerful set of universal abilities known as common sense.<\/p>\n<p>As an <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=fetkEu4AAAAJ&amp;hl=en\">artificial intelligence researcher<\/a>, my work is part of a broad effort to give computers a semblance of common sense. It\u2019s an extremely challenging effort.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Quick_%E2%80%93_define_common_sense\"><\/span><strong>Quick \u2013 define common sense<\/strong><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Despite being both universal and essential to how humans understand the world around them and learn, common sense has defied a single precise definition. G. K. Chesterton, an English philosopher, and theologian, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.online-literature.com\/chesterton\/charlesdickens\/6\/\">famously wrote<\/a> at the turn of the 20th century that \u201ccommon sense is a wild thing, savage, and beyond rules.\u201d Modern definitions today agree that, at minimum, it is a natural, rather than formally taught, human ability that allows people to navigate daily life.<\/p>\n<p>Common sense is unusually broad and includes not only <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social<\/a> abilities, like managing expectations and reasoning about other people\u2019s emotions, but also a <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cl.cam.ac.uk\/%7Eafb21\/publications\/masters\/node28.html\">naive sense of physics<\/a>, such as knowing that a heavy rock cannot be safely placed on a flimsy plastic table. Naive, because people know such things despite not consciously working through physics equations.<\/p>\n<p>Common sense also includes background knowledge of abstract notions, such as time, space and events. This knowledge allows people to plan, estimate and organize without having to be too exact.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Common_sense_is_hard_to_compute\"><\/span>Common sense is hard to compute<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Intriguingly, common sense has been an important <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/jmc.stanford.edu\/articles\/mcc59.html\">challenge at the frontier of AI<\/a> since the earliest days of the field in the 1950s. Despite enormous advances in AI, especially in <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/mind-games\">game-playing<\/a> and <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/openaccess.thecvf.com\/content_CVPR_2020\/papers\/Wang_Mitigating_Bias_in_Face_Recognition_Using_Skewness-Aware_Reinforcement_Learning_CVPR_2020_paper.pdf\">computer vision<\/a>, machine common sense with the richness of human common sense remains a distant possibility. This may be why AI efforts designed for complex, real-world problems with many intertwining parts, such as diagnosing and recommending treatments for COVID-19 patients, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2021\/07\/30\/1030329\/machine-learning-ai-failed-covid-hospital-diagnosis-pandemic\/\">sometimes fall flat<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Modern AI is designed to tackle highly specific problems, in contrast to common sense, which is vague and can\u2019t be defined by a set of rules. Even the latest models make absurd errors at times, suggesting that <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2020\/08\/22\/1007539\/gpt3-openai-language-generator-artificial-intelligence-ai-opinion\/\">something fundamental is missing<\/a> in the AI\u2019s world model. For example, given the following text:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cYou poured yourself a glass of cranberry, but then absentmindedly, you poured about a teaspoon of grape juice into it. It looks OK. You try sniffing it, but you have a bad cold, so you can\u2019t smell anything. You are very thirsty. So you\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>the highly touted AI text generator GPT-3 <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cs.nyu.edu\/%7Edavise\/papers\/GPT3CompleteTests.html\">supplied<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cdrink it. You are now dead.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Recent ambitious efforts have recognized machine common sense as a moonshot AI problem of our times, one requiring concerted collaborations across institutions over many years. A notable example is the four-year <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.darpa.mil\/program\/machine-common-sense\">Machine Common Sense<\/a> program launched in 2019 by the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.darpa.mil\/\">U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency<\/a> to accelerate research in the field after the agency released a <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/pdf\/1810.07528.pdf\">paper outlining the problem and the state of research in the field<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Machine Common Sense program funds many current research efforts in machine common sense, including our own, Multi-modal Open World Grounded Learning and Inference (<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/usc-isi-i2.github.io\/mowgli\/\">MOWGLI<\/a>). MOWGLI is a collaboration between our research group at the University of Southern California and AI researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Technology<\/a>, University of California at Irvine, Stanford University , and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The project aims to build a computer system that can answer a wide range of commonsense questions.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Transformers_to_the_rescue\"><\/span>Transformers to the rescue?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>One reason to be optimistic about finally cracking machine common sense is the recent development of a type of advanced <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/searchenterpriseai.techtarget.com\/definition\/deep-learning-deep-neural-network\">deep learning AI<\/a> called transformers. Transformers are able to model natural language in a powerful way and, with some adjustments, are <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aclweb.org\/anthology\/D19-5827.pdf\">able to answer<\/a> simple commonsense questions. Commonsense question answering is an essential first step for building chatbots that can converse in a human-like\u00a0way.<\/p>\n<p>In the last couple of years, a <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s11431-020-1647-3\">prolific body of research<\/a> has been published on transformers, with direct <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>lications to commonsense reasoning. This rapid progress as a community has forced researchers in the field to face two related questions at the edge of <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/sciencee\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"5\" title=\"Science\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">science<\/a> and philosophy: Just what is common sense? And how can we be sure an AI has common sense or not?<\/p>\n<p>To answer the first question, researchers divide common sense into different categories, including commonsense sociology, psychology, and background knowledge. The authors of a <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/books\/formal-theory-of-commonsense-psychology\/20289940AFB026AB3EF31EBCF8875628\">recent book<\/a> argue that researchers can go much further by dividing these categories into 48 fine-grained areas, such as planning, threat detection, and emotions.<\/p>\n<p>However, it is not always clear how cleanly these areas can be separated. In our <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/exp.2021.9\">recent paper<\/a>, experiments suggested that a clear answer to the first question can be problematic. Even expert human annotators \u2013 people who analyze text and categorize its components \u2013 within our group disagreed on which aspects of common sense applied to a specific sentence. The annotators agreed on relatively concrete categories like time and space but disagreed on more abstract concepts.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Recognizing_AI_common_sense\"><\/span>Recognizing AI common sense<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Even if you accept that some overlap and ambiguity in theories of common sense is inevitable, can researchers ever really be sure that an AI has common sense? We often ask machines questions to evaluate their common sense, but humans navigate daily life in far more interesting ways. People employ a range of skills, honed by evolution, including the ability to recognize basic cause and effect, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/agenda\/2020\/11\/human-behaviour-problem-solving-skills\/\">creative problem solving<\/a>, estimations, planning , and essential social skills, such as conversation and <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cep.ucsb.edu\/topics\/anger.htm\">negotiation<\/a>. As long and incomplete as this list might be, an AI should achieve no less before its creators can declare victory in machine commonsense research.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s already becoming painfully clear that even research in transformers is yielding diminishing returns. Transformers are getting larger and more <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/it-takes-a-lot-of-energy-for-machines-to-learn-heres-why-ai-is-so-power-hungry-151825\">power-hungry<\/a>. A <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/research.baidu.com\/Blog\/index-view?id=152\">recent transformer<\/a> developed by Chinese search engine giant Baidu has several billion parameters. It takes an enormous amount of data to effectively train. Yet, it has so far proved unable to grasp the nuances of humancommon sense.<\/p>\n<p>Even deep learning pioneers seem to think that <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=x5Vxk9twXlE\">new fundamental research<\/a> may be needed before today\u2019s neural networks are able to make such a leap. Depending on how successful this new line of research is, there\u2019s no telling whether machine common sense is five years away, or 50.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article by\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/mayank-kejriwal-1213029\">Mayank Kejriwal<\/a>, Research Assistant Professor of Industrial &amp; Systems Engineering, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-southern-california-1265\">University of Southern California<\/a> is republished from <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/an-ai-expert-explains-why-its-hard-to-give-computers-something-you-take-for-granted-common-sense-165600\">original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/ai-expert-explains-why-common-sense-hard-computers-syndication\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Computers suck at \u2018common sense\u2019 \u2014 AI expert explains why&#8221; Imagine you\u2019re having friends over for lunch and plan to order a pepperoni pizza. You recall Amy mentioning that Susie had stopped eating meat. You try calling Susie, but when she doesn\u2019t pick up, you decide to play it safe and just order a margherita&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":326965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/neural?filter_last=1&fit=1280,640&url=https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2021\/08\/robot-common-sense.jpg&signature=f75257a3e0758238f7e94738753bea59","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}