THE first steps of merging humans’ minds with machines are underway as a Canadian company hopes to create artificial intelligence (AI) capable of performing complex dextrous tasks.is the most powerful to date.
By holding motion-tracking controllers and wearing virtual reality headsets, humans will act as a “pilot” to the robots who will learn from their coordinator, meaning the machine will learn how to perform tasks by picking up on human capabilities.
The company known as Kindred will officially launch its product later this year, initially for retailers who can teach the robots how to do things such as handle clothes and place them in their designated spots.
Robots will eventually be able to perform medical tasks more quickly and efficiently than humans can.
However, the company’s end goal is to create an AI system that is the most powerful to date.
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The machines can learn from human actions
Geordie Rose, who is a co-founder and the CEO of Kindred, told Technology Review: “A pilot can see, hear, and feel what the robot is seeing, hearing, and feeling. When the pilot acts, those actions move the robot.
“This allows us to show robots how to act like people.
Meet the robot you can control with your mind
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“Humans aren't the fastest or best at all aspects of robot control, like putting things in specific locations, but humans are still best at making sense of tricky or unforeseen situations.”
The machine initially tries to perform a task by itself, such as grabbing an item, but if it is not able to, then it calls on human assistance to teach it.
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The human then dons a virtual reality headset and a controller which essentially merges the two entities, allowing the former to teach the latter through action.
Suzanne Gildert, Kindred’s chief scientific officer, said: “The idea was if you could do that for long enough, and if you had some sort of AI system in the background learning, that maybe you could try out many different AI models and see which ones trained better.
[Source: This article was published in express.co.uk ]
