Marketplace®

Daily business news and economic stories

Researchers are trying to make computers a little more like babies

This is a Marketplace.org Reader

Don’t worry, they still can’t make a computer wail and throw all its food on the floor. But, computer scientists at UC Berkeley are hoping they can teach computers to think like babies. From Futurity:
Young children are capable of solving problems that still pose a challenge for computers, such as learning languages and figuring out causal relationships,” says Tom Griffiths, director of UC Berkeley’s Computational Cognitive Science Lab. “We are hoping to make computers smarter by making them a little more like children.
If scientists crack this code, it could mean that computers could get better at talking on the phone, tutoring you, maybe starting to understand causal relationships and help doctors learn more about what causes certain diseases.