Back to Jim
Schoening statement
Below is an excerpt from the
TESTIMONY OF DR. TONY TETHER, DIRECTOR,
DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY,
BEFORE THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM,
UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES,
25 MARCH 2004
Cognitive Computing
Many elements of the information technology revolution that have vastly increased the effectiveness of the U.S. military and transformed American society, including time-sharing, personal computers, and the Internet, were given their impetus by a visionary scientist at DARPA some 40 years ago, J. C. R. Licklider.
Licklider's vision was of people and computers working together symbiotically. He envisioned computers seamlessly adapting to people as partners that would handle routine information processing tasks.
This would free people to focus on what they do best - think analytically and creatively - and, thereby, greatly extend their cognitive powers. Despite enormous and continuing progress in information technology over the years, computer capabilities are still well short of Licklider's vision. Current computing systems are critical to U.S. national defense, yet they remain exceedingly complex, expensive to create and debug, insecure, unable to easily work well together, and prone to failure. And, they still require the user to adapt to them, rather than the other way around. Computers have grown ever faster, but they remain fundamentally unintelligent and difficult to use. Something dramatically different is needed.
In response, DARPA is again tackling Licklider's vision in a strategic thrust called "Cognitive Computing." Cognitive computers can be thought of as systems that know what they're doing.
Cognitive computing systems will be able to reason about their environments (including other systems), their goals, and their own capabilities. They will be able to learn both from experience and by being taught. They will be capable of natural interactions with users, and will be able to explain their reasoning in natural terms. They will be robust in the face of surprises and avoid the brittleness and fragility of today's supposed expert systems.
The fundamental importance of Cognitive Computing was underscored in a statement by Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates: "If you invent a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, so machines can learn ... that is worth 10 Microsofts." Mr. Gates' statement goes beyond just economics: this research, if successful, will bring profound changes to the way DoD uses computers to conduct operations.