Machine passes gaokao math test

AI-MATHS scored 105 out of 150 in math－a "satisfactory" result, according to the developer.[He Haiyang/For China Daily]

A smart machine made by a company in Chengdu, Sichuan province, took the math test of the national college entrance examination, or gaokao, on Wednesday.

AI-MATHS finished the paper version of the test for liberal arts students in Beijing with a score of 105. A full score was 150.

"The score is satisfactory," said Lin Hui, CEO of Zhunxingyunxue Technology of Chengdu, which developed the machine.

AI-MATHS is an artificial intelligence program developed in 2014, based on cutting-edge big data technology, artificial intelligence and natural language recognition from Tsinghua University.

The Ministry of Science and Technology has announced a plan to develop gaokao robots. Under the plan, artificial intelligence devices would be smart enough to gain admission to leading universities through the entrance exam by 2020.

Before Wednesday's test, the developer had the machine answer 12,000 math questions to improve its logical reasoning and computer algorithms.

In February, AI-MATHS took a math test with Grade 3 students at Chengdu Shishi Tianfu High School and scored 93, slightly higher than the passing grade of 90. The 43 students had an average score of 106.

Student She Yujia felt she was bound to lose out as a representative of the human race, because she had heard the story of AlphaGo, Google's artificial intelligence program, which defeated the world's top-notch human go players.

To her pleasant surprise, she got a score of 135, much higher than the machine.

AI-MATHS was good at answering pure math questions, but could not understand words such as investment and financial management.

As a result, it could only guess the meaning and made mistakes, Lin said.