Lecture � Lieberman, Faculty talk on common sense

Greg Detre

Wednesday, February 26, 2003

Beating some common sense into interactive applications

 

small size of infinity (estimates from 20m to several billions)

 

applications for common sense

conversational applications (e.g. question answering or story understanding) vs software agents (e.g. AI programs that play an assistive role to the user, or adjunts to interactive applications)

software agents are much better suited to common sense

even if it doesn�t work you just carry on using the interface and ignore it

continuously running, role of giving help/suggestions occasionally

failsoft

conversational apps � only one chance, user expects highly accurate response

look for situations where:

even a little knowledge helps

knowing a little about a lot is better than specialisation

underconstrained UI (why???)

 

common sense as what�s shared (within a group), and doesn�t need to be stated

defaults, assumptions, plausibility

broad but shallow (???)

 

Questions

aarp???

mindpixel???