Ideally, computer interfaces will be able to interact with users at a higher level by understanding our goals, our problems, and the social procedures by which we live. In order for these intelligent computer interfaces to see the world from the perspective of their users, they must have access to a wealth of information about the world that human users take for granted. This information, which forms the basis of goal-directed computer interactions, is common sense knowledge.

Common sense knowledge is non-expert and possessed by every person. Thus, volunteers make up a significant source of common sense knowledge being collected today, and intelligent interfaces help these contributors create robust and complete common sense databases. An interactive and intelligent environment can guide a contributor to add the information that would be most useful to the system and, with good design, can make the knowledge entry experience more rewarding for the contributor.

In turn, this collected common sense knowledge helps enable a wide variety of interfaces to function better. We're interested in exploring both sides of this symbiotic relationship. How can common sense enable computers interfaces to better understand their human users? How can interfaces enable the elicitation of common sense knowledge?