Computer as Smart as a Four-Year-Old: Scientists Test IQ of AI System

Artificial intelligence is growing by leaps and bounds as scientists create newer and faster computers. Now, they've tested the "IQ" of one of the smartest machines. How smart was it? It turns out that it's about as smart as a four-year-old.

The researchers tested a system known as ConceptNet 4, which is an artificial intelligence system developed at MIT. In order to measure its smarts against a human's, the scientists gave the machine a standard IQ assessment that's usually used for young children. In the end, they found that ConceptNet 4 has the average intelligence of a young child. Unlike most children, though, the machine's scores were uneven across different portions of the test.

"If a child had scores that varied this much, it might be a symptom that something was wrong," said Robert Sloan, professor and head of computer science at UIC, in a news release.

While ConceptNet 4 did well on vocabulary tests and tests on its ability to recognize similarities, it did dramatically worse than average on comprehension of 'why' questions. There's a reason for that, though. It's extremely difficult to devise a computer system that can make sound and prudent judgement based on a simple perception of a situation. In other words, it's hard to program commonsense. Not only does it require a very large collection of facts, but it also requires implicit facts, which are things so obvious that we don't know we know them.

"All of us know a huge number of things," said Sloan in a news release. "As babies, we crawled around and yanked on things and learned that things fall. We yanked on other things and learned that dogs and cats don't appreciate having their tails pulled. We're still very far from programs with commonsense--AI that can answer comprehension questions with the skill of a child of eight."

The findings reveal exactly how far we've come when it comes to creating artificial intelligence. In addition, it shows exactly how far we need to go--especially when it comes to creating commonsense. As we continue to improve machines, though, it's possible that we may soon see machines that are smarter than the average four-year-old--or even the average eight-year old.