A.I. Reboots

  • March 2002
  • By Michael Hiltzik

"Artificial intelligence" used to mean robots that think like people; now it means software for rejecting junk e-mail. Low expectations could yield better applications, sooner.

   

It was the spring of 2000. The scene was a demonstration of an advanced artificial-intelligence project for the U.S. Department of Defense; the participants were a programmer, a screen displaying an elaborate windowed interface and an automated "intelligence"-a software application animating the display. The subject, as the programmer typed on his keyboard, was anthrax.

Instantly the machine responded: "Do you mean Anthrax (the heavy-metal band), anthrax (the bacterium) or anthrax (the disease)?"

 

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