Thanks to artificial intelligence, a pair of robot legs was taught how to walk on their own. Well, to be specific, thanks to reinforcement learning (the training technique that teaches AIs complex behavior via trial and error), Cassie learned to walk from scratch. The robot legs are also capable of walking in a crouch and while carrying a load. Unlike the viral robots from Boston Dynamics, Cassie can’t dance, as MIT Technology Review details:
Reinforcement learning has been used to train bots to walk inside simulations before, but transferring that ability to the real world is hard. “Many of the videos that you see of virtual agents are not at all realistic,” says Chelsea Finn, an AI and robotics researcher at Stanford University, who was not involved in the work. Small differences between the simulated physical laws inside a virtual environment and the real physical laws outside it—such as how friction works between a robot’s feet and the ground—can lead to big failures when a robot tries to apply what it has learned. A heavy two-legged robot can lose balance and fall if its movements are even a tiny bit off.
The real Cassie was able to walk using the model learned in simulation without any extra fine-tuning. It could walk across rough and slippery terrain, carry unexpected loads, and recover from being pushed. During testing, Cassie also damaged two motors in its right leg but was able to adjust its movements to compensate. Finn thinks that this is exciting work. Edward Johns, who leads the Robot Learning Lab at Imperial College London agrees. “This is one of the most successful examples I have seen,” he says.
Image via MIT Technology Review
Comments (2)
The complaint that schools don't teach courses on the teachings of Christ in religious studies departments is absurd. There are plenty of courses on Christianity in religious studies departments where one can learn about the teachings of the religion including the parts Jesus said, and the various interpretations of those teachings over time. They study the topic academically, so they don't proselytize, but they certainly exist in the typical religious studies department.
The author seems to be one of those people who is very attached to his economic, political, and religious dogmas and is upset that universities have the academic freedom to teach other views. These kind of articles make the rounds pretty often, but they are usually a bit more veiled in their bias. If you want to do a better job of hiding your bias all you need to do is list off the more absurd things that go down in the Lit. Crit world - touch on some classes that delve into weirder corners of Marxist Critical Theory, Queer-Theory, and find one of the zanier courses on a Postmodernist theory of science, then list off a few salacious courses in Human Sexuality, and you've got it covered without wearing your politics on your sleeve.
Really disappointing to see bigoted drivel like this highlighted on Neatorama.
please explain the through process behind the inclusion of this article.