Commonsense knowledge base construction[edit]

Compiling comprehensive knowledge bases of commonsense assertions (CSKBs) is a long-standing challenge in AI research. From early expert-driven efforts like CYC and WordNet, significant advances were achieved via the crowdsourced OpenMind Commonsense project, which lead to the crowdsourced ConceptNet KB. Several approaches have attempted to automate CSKB construction, most notably, via text mining (WebChild, Quasimodo, TransOMCS, Ascent), as well as harvesting these directly from pre-trained language models (AutoTOMIC). These resources are significantly larger than ConceptNet, though the automated construction mostly makes them of moderately lower quality. Challenges also remain on the representation of commonsense knowledge: Most CSKB projects follow a triple data model, which is not necessarily best suited for breaking more complex natural language assertions. A notable exception here is GenericsKB, which applies no further normalization to sentences, but retains them in full.

Applications[edit]

Around 2013, MIT researchers developed BullySpace, an extension of the commonsense knowledgebase ConceptNet, to catch taunting social media comments. BullySpace included over 200 semantic assertions based around stereotypes, to help the system infer that comments like "Put on a wig and lipstick and be who you really are" are more likely to be an insult if directed at a boy than a girl.[11][12][13]


ConceptNet has also been used by chatbots[14] and by computers that compose original fiction.[15] At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, common sense knowledge was used in an intelligent software agent to detect violations of a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.[16]

IsA (An "" is a "vehicle")

RV

UsedFor

HasA (A "" has a "tail")

rabbit

CapableOf

Desires

CreatedBy ("" can be created by "baking")

cake

PartOf

Causes

LocatedNear

AtLocation (Somewhere a "" can be at a "restaurant")

Cook

DefinedAs

SymbolOf (X represents Y)

ReceivesAction ("cake" can be "")

eaten

HasPrerequisite (X cannot do Y unless A does B)

MotivatedByGoal (You would "bake" because you want to "eat")

CausesDesire ("baking" makes you want to "follow ")

recipe

MadeOf

HasFirstSubevent (The first thing required when you're doing X is for entity Y to do Z)

HasSubevent ("eat" has subevent "swallow")

HasLastSubevent

As an example, as of 2012 ConceptNet includes these 21 language-independent relations:[17]

Cyc

(data source) and ConceptNet (datastore and NLP engine)

Open Mind Common Sense

[18]

Quasimodo

[19]

Webchild

[20]

TupleKB

True Knowledge

Graphiq

[21]

Ascent++

Common sense

and the Semantic Web

Linked data

Truth Maintenance or Reason Maintenance

Ontology