In 2002, artificial intelligence was still in winter. Despite decades of effort, dreams of bestowing computers with humanlike cognition and real-world understanding had not materialized. To look for a way forward, a small group of scientists gathered for “The St. Thomas Common Sense Symposium.” AI pioneer Marvin Minsky was the central presence, along with his protégé Pushpinder Singh. After the symposium, Minsky, Singh, and renowned philosopher Aaron Sloman published a paper on the group’s ideas for how to reach humanlike AI.
The paper speaks to the struggles of early-century AI. But one sentence truly stands out today. In a brief paragraph of acknowledgements, the
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