The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) just released a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) on Machine Common Sense (MCS) with a December 18, 2018, response date.

DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of machine common sense to enable Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications to understand new situations, monitor the reasonableness of their actions, communicate more effectively with people, and transfer learning to new domains. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems.

Machine common sense has long been a critical—but missing—component of AI. Recent advances in machine learning have resulted in exciting new capabilities, but machine reasoning remains narrow and highly specialized. Developers must carefully train or program systems for every situation. General machine common sense remains elusive.

The absence of common sense prevents intelligent systems from understanding their world, behaving reasonably in unforeseen situations, communicating naturally with people, and learning from new experiences. Its absence is perhaps the most significant barrier between the narrowly focused AI applications we have today and the more general, human-like AI systems we would like to build in the future. If successful, the MCS program could accelerate the development of machine common sense in both defense and commercial applications.

See the full BAA here.