The original goal of human-like artificial intelligence was abandoned decades ago in favor of less ambitious approaches, two cognitive scientists argue in a new book. If that initial vision is to be realized, they say, AI systems will require a full understanding of language and meaning, the development of which remains a daunting — but doable — challenge.

In Linguistics for the Age of AI, published by MIT Press, co-authors Marjorie McShane and Sergei Nirenburg, both faculty in the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and co-directors of the Language-Endowed Intelligent Agents Lab, present a novel approach to language processing for AI systems.

A computer’s ability to convincingly respond to questions like a person — thereby “passing” what has come to be known as the Turing Test — is widely regarded as a practical measure of artificial intelligence. But Bram van Heuveln, a lecturer in the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, contends that this common interpretation misses the important point that British mathematician Alan Turing was trying to make in his 1950 paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.”

Van Heuveln makes the case for a new understanding of the Turing Test in a chapter of the book Great Philosophical Objections to Artificial Intelligence: The History and Legacy of the AI Wars, published this month by Bloomsbury.

TROY, N.Y. — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is among the best places in the country to pursue an undergraduate degree in game design or animation, according to recent rankings from Animation Career Review.