new york humans may soon be able to talk to computers and robots the same way they talk to their friends scientists say a new programme from the us defence advanced projects agency darpa aims to get computers to express themselves more like humans by allowing them to use spoken language facial expressions and gestures to communicate today we view computers as tools to be activated by a few clicks or keywords in large part because we are separated by a language barrier said paul cohen darpas communicating with computers cwc programme manager the goal of cwc is to bridge that barrier and in the process encourage the development of new problemsolving technologies cohen said one of the problemsolving technologies that cwc could help further is the computerbased modelling used in cancer research computers previously developed by darpa are already tasked with creating models of the complicated molecular processes that cause cells to become cancerous but while these computers can churn out models quickly they are not so adept at judging if the models are actually plausible and worthy of further research if the computers could somehow seek the opinions of fleshandblood biologists the work they do would likely be more useful for cancer researchers to get computers up to the task of communicating with people cwc researchers have devised several tasks that require computers and humans to work together toward a common goal live science reported one of the tasks known as collaborative composition involves storytelling in this exercise humans and computers take turns contributing sentences until they have composed a short story this is a parlor game for humans but a tremendous challenge for computers cohen said to do it well the machine must keep track of the ideas in the story then generate an idea about how to extend the story and express this idea in language cohen added another assignment that the cwc is planning is known as block world which would require humans and computers to communicate to build structures out of toy blocks but neither humans nor computers will be told what to build instead theyll have to work together to make a structure that can stand up of its own accord better communications technologies could help robot operators use natural language to describe missions and give directions to the machines they operate both before and during operations