Microsoft launches its next crash course for Machines called Common Sense

Microsoft co-founder  Paul Allen said that he was pumping an additional $125 million into his non profit computer research lab for an ambitious new effort to teach machines “common sense.”

They expect the money for Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence will about double the labs budget over the next three years. They are helping to fund the existing project called Alexandria.

In the years and decades to come, the lab hopes to create a database of fundamental knowledge that humans take for granted but machines have always lacked.

To make real progress in AI, we have to overcome the big challenges in the area of common sense, said Allen, who founded the soft ware giant Microsoft in the 1970s with Bill Gates. 

Where as , today's machines can recognise nearby objects, identify spoken words, translate one language into another and mimic other human tasks with an accuracy.But these machines struggle with other basic tasks. 

AI recognises objects, but it can't explain. What it sees it can't read text books and understand questions it is devoid of common sense.

Success may require years or even decades of work if it comes at all. Others have tried to digitize common sense, and the tense and the task has always proved too large.
The team is still at work on the common sense engine