 Becca is a computer program that learns about the world by watching, listening and trying things. Like a newborn baby, it gathers these experiences and loses them to make sense of its surroundings. Poor Mr. Baggins had never had much practice in climbing trees, but they hoisted him up into the lowest branches of an enormous oak... Becca listens to a reading of the Hobbit and learned patterns of tones in the narrator's voice. Ten times per second, the recording was broken up into its tones and fed into Becca. Tones that tended to occur at about the same time were formed into groups. Groups that tended to occur at about the same time were formed into still, bigger groups. Learning complicated patterns like these are hard, but it helps computers and robots to figure out the world. Eventually, it might help them understand us and follow instructions. Maybe even as well as a dog.