BBN Technologies has been awarded $5.5 million in funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the first phase of development of an artificial intelligence capability, which is called "Integrated Learner" and will learn plans or processes after being shown a single example. The total value of the effort could be up to $24 million.
The purpose of this project is to combine specialized domain knowledge with common sense knowledge to create a reasoning system that learns as well as a human being and can be applied to a variety of complex tasks. Such a system will significantly expand the kinds of tasks that a computer can learn.
According to the contract, BBN Technologies's first year research will focus on military medical logistics planning, specifically, a simulation that requires evacuating wounded military personnel from Iraq to hospitals in Germany and Kuwait. However, successful demonstration of this system will have implications beyond the ability to automate the medical evacuation planning process by providing the groundwork for automated systems capable of learning other tasks of similar complexity. This will enable a capacity to develop more effective military decision/planning support systems at lower costs and that require less training for human users.
Sergyi Way
12.07.2006