Artificial intelligence is rapidly transitioning from the realm of science fiction to the reality of our daily lives. Our devices understand what we say, speak to us, and translate between languages with ever increasing fluency. AI-powered visual recognition algorithms are outperforming people and beginning to find applications in everything from self-driving cars to systems that diagnose cancer in medical images. In the conversation that follows—excerpted from Martin Ford’s exchange with Dr. Oren Etzioni—one of 23 such in-depth interviews featured in his new book, Architects of Intelligence, we gain some remarkable insights into one of the field’s greatest challenges: bringing common-sense understanding to machines.
