CYC is now available as an open source download. This is Douglas Lenat’s massive attempt to compile a database that will be able to answer the most ordinary of questions, simulating common sense, things that we humans know because we live in a contextual world: Is a kiss an appropriate way to say goodbye to a cab driver? If I run over a raccoon, which will pop, the raccoon or my tires? Which makes a better tool for cutting through the tape on a package I receive in the mail, a dime, a quarter or a CD?

CYC is so fundamentally wrong about how the mind works that it staggers me that we fall for it. Andy Clarke’s Being There brilliantly shows why. (I wrote about Clarke here.) So does Hubert Dreyfus’ stuff.

Unfortunately, CYC (or whatever software is running the web site) isn’t smart enough to know how to put commas into long numbers; it reports the file size of the download as “39955940.” Have I ever mentioned how much this irks me?

Categories: Uncategorized dw