# Conscienceness - common sense

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conscienceness-common-sense/96>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [June 16, 1999, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conscienceness-common-sense/96 "1999-06-16T03:07:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 1999, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conscienceness-common-sense/96/1 "1999-06-16T03:07:00Z")

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> [@](#):
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> Douglas Lenat has been trying to teach a computer common sense. He estimates this will require 100 million discrete chunks of information, and 15 years into the project he guesses it will take his team another 25 years to enter all the necessary data. Yet a normal human being learns it all effortlessly in childhood.

He must not get out much. I find common sense is the rarest quality in humans.

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 1999, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conscienceness-common-sense/96/2 "1999-06-16T14:53:00Z")

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I think Lenat is right on track. I’m not surprised that humans don’t develop common sense until they are 40 years old…

-Art