The Cyc
Created | Updated Jul 15, 2003
Somewhere in north Austin, lies the collection of data and software know as the Cyc. The Cyc, short for encyclopedia, is an attempt to breed a peripheral device (yes a device) like a modem chip or a sound chip that would contain “common sense” for computers. The developers of the Cyc envision adding the chip to your motherboard to allow your computer to gain an insight to the real world. For example, if you were writing about a horse and you referred to its tentacles, your Cyc chip would notice this and inquire of you what you actually meant. To do this a rather large volume of data is fed to the Cyc each day and allowed to collate each night. In the morning printouts show “questions” from the Cyc as is tries to resolve its data ambiguities and links.
The Incident
There is an incident that suggests that this collection of data may be self-aware. One day a list of the computer researchers that work on the Cyc was fed into the Cyc. The next morning the Cyc wanted to know the names of the computers that were working on the Cyc. The data was fed in that no computers were working on the Cyc, just people. Additionally it was fed in that there are no other computers with its level of intelligence available yet. What happened next suggests an identity may have emerged from this collection of data. The Cyc did not have any questions the next day or accept any input, or on the next day, or the next, which suggested that the program had crashed. The Cyc had always had questions each morning and never once diverged from this routine. Now researchers pondered what to do, should they reboot the system and restore from backup before the new data about non-sentient computers was fed in? Or should they just leave the computer to collate the data and wait. They chose to wait and the next day they were rewarded by a short list of questions. It seems noteworthy that the information about other computers versus the Cyc produced an identity crisis of some type. Eventually, like a human brain this issue was resolved and data collection was resumed.
Infant Brains
Child psychologists are aware that knowledge is built up in the brain of infants in a similar manner. Questions are asked. .”Mommy why is the sky blue? Why is my hair brown and Sally’s is red?” etc. It could be that a computer with the Cyc on board would have a easier time achieving status as an Artificial Intelligence.