Pat Inc., the leader in Natural Language Understanding (NLU) technology, announced the successful results of its first set of independent tests, developed by Facebook AI Research (FAIR). The IQ tests are intended to train computers to be smarter by using logical questions most humans can answer and putting them to the test against artificial intelligence (AI), i.e. what FAIR dubbed the “bAbI Project.”
Pat Inc. takes a completely different approach to NLU by teaching language to machines using advanced linguistics, and successfully completed 6 bAbI tests to further verify the platform progress and evaluate its reading comprehension.
Further, the bAbi Project’s goal is automatic text understanding and reasoning through using as little data as possible to solve question/puzzles. The aim is that each task tests a unique aspect of text and reasoning, and hence test different capabilities of learning models. Pat required very little data to successfully pass each test, a significant feat in the tests.
Despite all the investment and advances we’ve seen in machine intelligence over the last 60 years, we still can’t match a three-year-old for understanding meaning in natural language. Unlike a human, AI can’t understand the basics, let alone the nuances of human language right now. And until it does, we can’t really communicate effectively, which limits the potential value of machine intelligence, especially to narrow or specialist domains, which is hardly AI.
Pat has set out to humanize conversation with machines, building AI’s next generation NLU API to deliver “Meaning-as-a-Service” by processing natural language and human conversations into structured information about its meaning. Developers will be able to leverage the platform, currently in private beta, to build intelligent agents and applications that you can talk or text to.
Pat Ball, Founder and CTO of Pat Inc.: “This is great progress – but for us, it’s just the beginning. We believe we can scale Pat beyond these tests to really solve the challenge of NLU. In the process, we can also meet the significant forecast demand for AI apps – forecast by IDC to be valued at $40 billion across Google, IBM, Amazon and Microsoft platforms by 2020. That’s why Pat’s further development will have significant impact on the AI we already depend on today – as well as the technology just around the corner. From driverless cars and wearables to home automation and networked applications, we can expect machines to provide us with more meaningful, helpful experiences and a natural, human-like interaction.”
Dr Hossein Eslambolchi, Technical Advisor at Facebook (former AT&T CTO): “Pat offers next generation Natural Language Understanding technology, capable of being the conversational user interface of the future.”
Professor Robert Van Valin, Jr., University of Düsseldorf and University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, PhD UC Berkeley: “Statistical systems can accomplish NLP to a considerable degree, but they can never achieve NLU, which involves meaning. The answer lies in linguistics. Pat Inc. solves that.”
FAIR IQ tasks are publicly available: http://fb.ai/babi
For a summary of the tests, and Pat’s results and approach to solving the tests in greater detail, please visit the site: http://bit.ly/patincbabi
Developers are now welcome to register for private beta access to Pat API: https://pat.ai
