Sample transcript from the START project's natural language interface:

==> WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE AI LABORATORY

The central goal of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is to develop a computational theory of intelligence extending from the manifestation of behavior to operations at the neural level. Current work focuses especially on understanding the role of vision, language, and motor computation in general intelligence.

The Laboratory also seeks to develop high-impact practical applications in areas such as information transportation, enhanced reality, the human-computer interface, modeling and simulation, image understanding, decision analysis and impact prediction, model-based engineering design, medicine, and supporting computing technology.

==> HOW MANY PEOPLE DO RESEARCH AT THE AI LABORATORY

The MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory's 178 members include 17 faculty members, 26 academic staff, 29 research and support staff, and 106 graduate students.

==> HOW DO I GET IN TOUCH WITH COG

I am sorry to say I don't know how you get in the touch with Cog.

==> WHERE IS MY DEGREE

Sorry, no one has told me where your degree is.

==> HOW MUCH IS MY DEGREE WORTH

I don't know the answer. Sorry.

==> WHERE IS GSB

Unfortunately, I wasn't told where Gsb is.

==> SHOW ME THE MONEY

Sorry, I don't know which country's money you are asking about.

==> HOW SHOULD WE REDUCE THE FEDERAL BUDGET DEFICIT

Sorry, no one has told me how you should reduce the federal budget deficit.

==> DOES ANYBODY WORK AROUND HERE

Yes -

START (SynTactic Analysis using Reversible Transformations) is a natural language processing system. It consists of two modules which share the same Grammar. The understanding module analyzes English text and produces a knowledge base which incorporates information found in the text. Given an appropriate segment of the knowledge base, the generating module produces English sentences. A user can retrieve the information stored in the knowledge base by querying it in English. The system will then produce an English response.

In addition, by annotating free-form text with English phrases and sentences, then matching these annotations with incoming queries, the power of sentence-level natural language processing can be effectively put to use in the service of information retrieval. Furthemore, this technique generalizes easily to the indexing and retrieval of all types of information, whether or not these are based on text.

The START system was demonstrated during the Voyager Neptune encounter when researchers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and members of the press in the JPL press room were able to use the START system to retrieve information concerning the encounter, the Voyager spacecraft, and the solar system.

==> DOES GOD EXIST

I am sorry to say I don't know if god exists.

==> QUEEN TAKES BISHOP

You asked START to add the following assertion to its knowledge base: QUEEN TAKES BISHOP. At present, however, remote users are only allowed to ask questions.

==> DO YOU FEEL PAIN

I don't know whether I feel the pain.

==> WHAT DO YOU FEAR

Sorry - I don't know.

==> WHO IS THAT BEHIND YOU WITH THE KNIFE

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. Perhaps you could try it a bit differently.

==> SHOW ME JAY KEYSER'S NEW POEM

CROSSING A RIVER AT DUSK

by Samuel Jay Keyser

Crossing the Grumeti river, hunched,
a hundred mongooses, scuttle, bunched,
to hide from that implacable crocodile
their real measure.

  G   I   R   L      S   C   O   U   T      B   E   N   E   F   I   T