Exo-Brain Challenge

[Anchor Lead]

An artificial intelligence program developed by Korean researchers named "Exo-brain" will hold its first computer versus human challenge on Friday. Here’s more.

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In 2011, an artificial intelligence program developed by IBM and named "Watson" competed with human contestants in a famous quiz show. Watson's contenders were the show's greatest champions including the contestant who holds the record for the most wins and most prize money won. The final winner was Watson. Could something similar also happen in Korea? A Korean AI program named "Exo-brain" developed by the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute will hold its first computer versus human challenge on Friday. Exo-brain has been preparing for the challenge since last year, studying 120-thousand volumes' worth of encyclopedic, linguistic and common sense knowledge. Connected to 41 computer servers, the AI has the capacity to comprehend natural language and complex sentences and reason inductively.

[Soundbite] Lee Yun-geun(Electronics & Telecommunications Research Institute) : "It can be understood as the program being equipped with the latest technology through which it can divide up a complex question, inducing various answers and verifying them."

The research institute plans to apply the Exo-brain program to a range of fields in the near future.

[Soundbite] Han Dong-won(Software & contents director, ETRI) : "There are massive volumes of documents in the finance and legal sectors. Based on those data, the AI can provide services to the public and also experts if necessary."

The Korean version of AlphaGo's very first challenge against the human brain is drawing keen attention.