How is Cyc like HAL, the talking computer from Stanley Kubricks 2001?
DL: HAL was a general artificial intelligence, and Cyc is the closest thing that exists in the world to that kind of general artificial intelligence. We haven’t spent a lot of time building a pleasant voice for Cyc, or worrying too much about speech input to Cyc. But the idea of a general intelligence that’s able to understand what’s going on, modeled to different people and situations, [able to] give advice, give reminders, in effect, make people smarter, is really what we’re building with Cyc. You can think of Cyc as a kind of mental amplifier, something that is able to help people be smarter. And that’s really what HAL was. It was, in effect, an intelligent spaceship, something that enabled the crew to act smarter and better than if they didn’t have something like HAL and had to remember everything for themselves. Of course, HAL didn’t contain all the information it should have had, which is what led to it killing the crew, unfortunately. AC: How long will it be before Cyc can speak
