“If you asked most people, they’d probably say that computers and other gadgets are pretty good at communicating information to us, whether it’s by providing directions to an important business meeting or finding the best recipe for gluten-free apple pie.
And yet, computers still don’t communicate with us nearly as intuitively as we communicate with each other. If you type a query into a search engine, for example, chances are you’ll get a list of websites to click on. But if you ask a person a question, she’ll respond with an answer, or perhaps ask another question to get more information before answering.
Microsoft is hoping to improve how well computers can communicate information to us. Several teams of artificial intelligence experts around the world are working on a type of technological advance called machine reading comprehension.”