#personal data assistant

[grayrazor]

So if 70s and 80s sci-fi like Alien and Blade Runner are “cassette futurism,” can we call 90s and 00s stuff like Marathon and Doom 3 “PDA futurism”?

[postorbital]

As more jobs were automated, Hallmark refocused their ads to insist cards were for the benefit of the giver. Around the same time, they launched the Beepback line, to say thank you to a cell phone's secretarial calendar function, hello to a new gaming console, or to commemorate a particularly long journey in a driverless vehicle.

[scifigeneration]

"SOFILIA" seeks to replace "Siri" and "Cortana" with "JARVIS"-type interaction

What if your personal digital assistant could:

Understand what you're really asking for,

Engage in real conversation to clarify requests, to learn about you, and simply to engage in real conversation,

Remember and integrate all of your conversations,

And do it all far better than Siri, Google Now, and Cortana?

Meet Sofilia -- artificial intelligence software that's been under development and under the radar for more than a dozen years.

The Sofilia project is gathering backers on its Kickstarter, an impressive list of testimonials and endorsements for its creator, and a Twitter following that includes established names in the artificial intelligence research and business communities.

"This is not text-pattern-matching software, but true natural-language understanding. Sofilia technology will lead not only to better Siri-style software, but to true science-fiction-style software—real dialog, real conversations," said Dave Grundgeiger, Sofilia's creator.

The Kickstarter's flagship backer reward is remarkably inexpensive--at $10, backers get exclusive, early access to the Sofilia mobile app. For $99, independent software developers can help design Sofilia's API, and at $499 they can get pre-release access to the API itself. An API assures that Sofilia isn't just an app, but a conversational software platform used in everything from personal robots to game AI.

"It has the potential to radically change the way most people use computers, and allow for new applications we haven't even imagined yet," said Jason J. Gullickson, Chief Engineer at Murfie Music and early Sofilia backer. Referring to Sofilia's API, Gullickson said, "I have a lot of projects waiting on this kind of technology."

When finished in 2015, Sofilia will challenge Microsoft's Machine Comprehension Test, which was created in late 2013 to provide a way for high-end AI teams to measure their work. Grundgeiger's intention is to raise the performance well beyond existing software's capability toward human-level results.

Sofilia's Kickstarter project needs additional funding to reach its goal of $75,000 (US) with a completion date of 8 October 2014. The funds will be used to build Sofilia from a lab-based test system into a full natural-language system capable of handling MCTest.