Cyc (pronounced psyche)
The Cyc project was founded in 1984, by Dr. Douglas Lenat at Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC). It was a lead project there with goal to create true artificial intelligence. They set out to create AI with a large amount of human knowledge, facts, commonsense and problem solving skills.CYC started out a as a dream when Alan Kay was at Atari’s research center and asked Lenat for something to add to his project. When Atari had financial problems Lenat moved the project to MCC.
Cycorp founded in 1994 was funded by many large corporations including Microsoft, Apple and the Department of Defense. The largest application that has spawned from the Cyc knowledge base is Cycsecure. Cycsecure gives a computer the ability to distinguish the difference between regular file use and file use that may affect the security of the systems. There are other features that Cycsecure has and they may seem about the same as modern applications created after 2003, but Cycsecure is for mission critical activities and of the highest regards when it comes to technology.
Today Cycsecure seems to have all the same attributes that common home and professional security applications have. The AI is what makes it possible for probing a computer for risk assessment and fixing it before a human can compromise security. That is one thing what AI makes possible, now although Cycsecure is not known to be available for purchase by the average person. Cyc does have a open source version of their technology. I have not been able to find any other program that is based on Cyc technology. The reason I became interested in Cyc is because I always wondered what would happen if a application was programmed to know everything that existed then it would be smarter than any human.
Cyc seems to have done that and people have been building a database of knowledge since the 80’s and I am sure that’s part of what makes computer so great today. But I wonder how many programs are written include or use this extensive knowledge base? Search engines seem to have a lot of knowledge information but in a much unorganized way with most of it obviously being input from people and not having a true standard to conform and the only AI implemented is to allow for the finding of your information. A program that has organized knowledge input, and what if statements, is common sense reasoning. That is where AI has been born and that is what many applications seem to have.
Video Games is where this is really noticeable for example a well known game like Grand Theft Auto. This can seem almost life like not meaning the graphics but the reactions to your actions in the game. The reason a video game is so limited in its reaction is because limited amounts of knowledge are input. A video game developer only has reason to create AI that will react according to the circumstances of the players action and the goal of the game.
There are many other places AI can be found like Microsoft Words’ spell checker. Actually anytime you are on a computer you are more than likely dealing with AI, but once again the applications build is limited to its purpose and intended use. I also know the amount of time it takes someone to build an application for a any specific use on a computer can be exhausting and only something being worked on for a long period of time could amount to something that could be human-like artificial intelligence.
I have not looked into the openCyc too much mostly because my programming skills are a skill that I do not pack. I do believe however that Human like AI is where the technology world is heading inevitability. I think any programmer could find openCyc a very interesting endeavor for them.
For tutorials and files visit these sites
http://www.opencyc.org/
http://www.cyc.com/cyc
Here is an essay and a bit of a history lesson and is cited as a source of some of my information. But not any direct quotes have been used.
http://www.itmweb.com/essay540.htm#1
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