Douglas Lenat's Cyc is now being commercialized
Marvin Minsky said &quot;We need common-sense knowledge – and programs that can use it. Common sense computing needs several ways of representing knowledge. It is harder to make a computer housekeeper than a computer chess-player, because the housekeeper must deal with a wider range of situations.&quot; [1]<p>He named Douglas Lenat as one of the ten or so people working on common sense (at the time of the interview in 1998), and said the best system based on common sense is CYC. But he called for proprietary systems not to keep the data a secret, and to distribute copies, so they can evolve and get new ideas, and because we must understand how they work.<p>Sabbatini: Why there are no computers already working with common sense knowledge ?<p>Minsky: There are very few people working with common sense problems in Artificial Intelligence. I know of no more than five people, so probably there are about ten of them out there. Who are these people ? There’s John McCarthy, at Stanford University, who was the first to formalize common sense using logics. He has a very interesting web page. Then, there is Harry Sloaman, from the University of Edinburgh, who’s probably the best philosopher in the world working on Artificial Intelligence, with the exception of Daniel Dennett, but he knows more about computers. Then there’s me, of course. Another person working on a strong common-sense project is Douglas Lenat, who directs the CYC project in Austin. Finally, Douglas Hofstadter, who wrote many books about the mind, artificial intelligence, etc., is working on similar problems.<p>We talk only to each other and no one else is interested. There is something wrong with computer sciences.<p>Sabbatini: Is there any AI software that uses the common sense approach ?<p>Minsky: As I said, the best system based on common sense is CYC, developed by Doug Lenat, a brilliant guy, but he set up a company, CYCorp, and is developing it as a proprietary system. Many computer scientists have a good idea and then made it a secret and start making proprietary systems. They should distribute copies of their system to graduate systems, so that they could evolve and get new ideas. We must understand how they work.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cerebromente.org.br&#x2F;n07&#x2F;opiniao&#x2F;minsky&#x2F;minsky_i.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cerebromente.org.br&#x2F;n07&#x2F;opiniao&#x2F;minsky&#x2F;minsky_i.h...</a>