DARPA’s Communicating with Computers (CwC) developing technology to facilitate human-like communication between warfighters and their unamnned vehicles

The lifelong human imperative to communicate is so strong that people talk not only to other people but also to their pets, their plants and their computers. Straightforward as that may sound, communication involves several coordinated processes. The speaker puts ideas into words, the listener extracts ideas from words and, importantly, both rely on context to narrow down the possible meanings of ambiguous language. All of these processes are challenging for machines.

“Human communication feels so natural that we don’t notice how much mental work it requires,” said Paul Cohen, DARPA program manager. “But try to communicate while you’re doing something else –the high accident rate among people who text while driving says it all– and you’ll quickly realize how demanding it is.”