Robot competes for top university places

Wired 21 November 2015

Researchers in Japan are one step closer to their goal of getting an artificial intelligence accepted by Tokyo University. The artificial intelligence, called Todai Robot Project, has passed the standardised Japanese universities entrance exam with higher than average marks, making it clever enough to get into most Japanese universities, writes Cara McGoogan for Wired.

It scored 53.8% in the test that covers five subjects, including maths, physics, English and history questions. The national average for humans is 43.8%. Perhaps surprisingly, the robot achieved its highest marks in history and maths, thanks to its improving language-processing skills. Unfortunately, these aren't quite good enough for it to score highly in physics, a National Institute of Informatics spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal.

The artificial intelligence has been ‘revising’ since 2011 when the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo launched the “Can a robot get into Tokyo University?” project. The researchers plan for their robot to achieve a high score on the National Center Test for University Admissions by 2016, and to be accepted into Tokyo University, the nation's top-ranking institution, by 2021.
Full report on the Wired site

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