DARPA Selects SRI International to Lead Development of PLATO, a Machine Learning System that Could Launch a New Field of Research.

MENLO PARK, Calif. -- SRI International, an independent, nonprofit research and development organization, today announced that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded an SRI-led, multi-organization team an initial $10 million, 15-month (Phase 1) contract to develop a learning system called Phased Learning through Analyzing, Teaching and Observation (PLATO). PLATO is a major component of DARPA's newly formed program called Bootstrapped Learning. The total value of the effort, if all phases of the development program are completed, could be up to $27 million over 3.25 years.

The SRI-led team will deliver a domain-independent electronic 'student' that can be taught and can learn in human-like ways. SRI will serve as the systems integrator, focused on integrating all development tools so that they function effectively and seamlessly within the PLATO system.

"Our team will deliver a domain-independent electronic 'student' that can be taught and can learn in human-like ways," said Tom Garvey, Ph.D., associate director of SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center. "SRI will serve as the systems integrator and will focus on integrating all development tools so that they function effectively and seamlessly within the PLATO system."

"Despite advances in programming environments, knowledge acquisition, and learning methodologies, we have limited methods for domain experts to convey their expertise to a machine," said Ray Perrault, Ph.D., director of SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center. "Our overarching challenge is to enable a computer to build models that assimilate and interpret a teacher's guidance in the context of what it already knows. Achieving this goal entails creating solutions for learning from incomplete and inconsistent instruction, managing ambiguous interpretations, and learning from a variety of types of instruction."

The PLATO system will be designed to accept natural instruction, determine why it is being told this information, reason about the implication of the instruction in the context of what it already knows, and reflect upon it to further refine it when necessary. The highly modular PLATO system will be accessible to anyone interested in trying out new learning modules. Researchers and developers can choose to replace single components or the entire system.

The Bootstrapped Learning Program will also release a set of diverse test environments, including Space Station Diagnosis, UAV flight control, Robocup soccer, and battlefield control. The system is expected to help launch a new field of research in "instructable systems" centered on techniques to allow computer systems to be directly extended, modified and adapted in the field by subject matter experts. In today's rapidly changing environments, such systems should be cheaper and easier to maintain and adapt to new situations and requirements and -- more importantly -- faster to update and deploy.

The SRI-led PLATO team brings together many widely recognized AI research leaders from universities and companies with expertise in machine learning and associated technologies necessary to realize DARPA's goals. SRI will serve as lead systems integrator on the collaborative project. SRI's partners in the project include Boeing, Stony Brook University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Maryland Baltimore County, University of Massachusetts, University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, University of Washington, and University of Wisconsin-Madison.

PLATO and Bootstrapped Learning are important additions to a portfolio of large, SRI-led technology integration programs that includes: DARPA's PAL program (Personalized Assistant that Learns), DARPA's GALE program (Global Autonomous Language Exploitation), the AURA program (Automated User-centered Reasoning and Acquisition), and others. SRI draws on expertise in technologies, systems, and program management from across its organization to lead teams of companies and universities and solve the most challenging problems in information science and technology today.

About SRI International

Silicon Valley-based SRI International (www.sri.com) is one of the world's leading independent research and technology development organizations. Founded as Stanford Research Institute in 1946, SRI has been meeting the strategic needs of clients for more than 60 years. The nonprofit research institute performs client-sponsored research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses, and private foundations. In addition to conducting contract R&D, SRI licenses its technologies, forms strategic partnerships, and creates spin-off companies.