AI & Robotics News and Discussions

[Yuli Ban]

Microsoft has built an AI-powered autocomplete for code using GPT-3

In September 2020, Microsoft purchased an exclusive license to the underlying technology behind GPT-3, an AI language tool built by OpenAI. Now, the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant has announced its first commercial use case for the program: an assistive feature in the company’s PowerApps software that turns natural language into readymade code.

The feature is limited in its scope and can only produce formulas in Microsoft Power Fx, a simple programming language derived from Microsoft Excel formulas that’s used mainly for database queries. But it shows the huge potential for machine learning to help novice programmers by functioning as an autocomplete tool for code.

“WHY DON’T WE ... SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF A NORMAL HUMAN?”
“There’s massive demand for digital solutions but not enough coders out there. There’s a million-developer shortfall in the US alone,” Charles Lamanna, CVP of Microsoft’s Low Code Application Platform, tells The Verge. “So instead of making the world learn how to code, why don’t we make development environments speak the language of a normal human?”

[weatheriscool]

Slender robotic finger senses buried items
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-05-sle ... items.html
by Daniel Ackerman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MIT researchers developed a “Digger Finger” robot that digs through granular material, like sand and gravel, and senses the shapes of buried objects. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Over the years, robots have gotten quite good at identifying objects—as long as they're out in the open.

Discerning buried items in granular material like sand is a taller order. To do that, a robot would need fingers that were slender enough to penetrate the sand, mobile enough to wriggle free when sand grains jam, and sensitive enough to feel the detailed shape of the buried object.

MIT researchers have now designed a sharp-tipped robot finger equipped with tactile sensing to meet the challenge of identifying buried objects. In experiments, the aptly named Digger Finger was able to dig through granular media such as sand and rice, and it correctly sensed the shapes of submerged items it encountered. The researchers say the robot might one day perform various subterranean duties, such as finding buried cables or disarming buried bombs.

The research will be presented at the next International Symposium on Experimental Robotics. The study's lead author is Radhen Patel, a postdoc in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Co-authors include CSAIL Ph.D. student Branden Romero, Harvard University Ph.D. student Nancy Ouyang, and Edward Adelson, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Vision Science in CSAIL and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

[Yuli Ban]

Google AI Researchers Are Dreaming Up a New Species of Search Engine

Imagine a collection of books—maybe millions or even billions of them—haphazardly tossed by publishers into a heaping pile in a field. Every day the pile grows exponentially.

Those books are brimming with knowledge and answers. But how would a seeker find them? Lacking organization, the books are useless.

This is the raw internet in all its unfiltered glory. Which is why most of our quests for “enlightenment” online begin with Google (and yes, there are still other search engines). Google’s algorithmic tentacles scan and index every book in that ungodly pile. When someone enters a query in the search bar, the search algorithm thumbs through its indexed version of the internet, surfaces pages, and presents them in a ranked list of the top hits.

This approach is incredibly useful. So useful, in fact, that it hasn’t fundamentally changed in over two decades. But now, AI researchers at Google, the very company that set the bar for search engines in the first place, are sketching out a blueprint for what might be coming up next.

In a paper on the arXiv preprint server, the team suggests the technology to make the internet even more searchable is at our fingertips. They say large language models—machine learning algorithms like OpenAI’s GPT-3—could wholly replace today’s system of index, retrieve, then rank.

Hey, I've been thinking of that too!
Hell, it even sounds similar to that concept of "cognitive agents" I had a while ago, where individual autonomous agents with multipurpose functionality can resolve complex issues (e.g. tell an agent to find a certain file on the internet, download certain parts of it, and then run it, and it'll follow those instructions).

[Yuli Ban]

HyperCLOVA’s AI language tool has 204 billion parameters, which is more than GPT-3

South Korea’s IT giant Naver unveiled a supersized artificial intelligence platform on Tuesday that can process massive amounts of data, saying it aimed to lead the era of “hyperscale” AI.

Dubbed HyperCLOVA, the firm’s latest AI tool is not only the local industry’s most advanced but is also the first large-scale AI trained in the Korean language, Naver said.

“As a company that represents Korea’s artificial intelligence technology, we will find our way forward through various challenges and create a new era of artificial intelligence with many others,” said Jeong Seok-geun, who leads Naver’s AI research center, Naver CLOVA, at an online press conference.

Hyperscale AI, which is capable of analyzing and using massive datasets, can be used to develop new AI models.

The firm plans to add foreign languages, videos and images into HyperCLOVA’s neural network and to advance its machine learning capabilities. It also plans to actively work with businesses and researchers to diversify the AI tool’s uses.

[Time_Traveller]

Path Robotics CEO wants Columbus to be 'next big mecca' for robots

1 hr ago

In the welding field, however, some argue that a robot takeover might be beneficial, and even necessary.

Columbus startup Path Robotics believes AI is one solution to the shortage of skilled labor that plagues welding. Path boasts the “world’s first truly autonomous robotic welding system.” Conceived after 18 months in the basement of a foundry, its system identifies what needs to be welded, welds it and learns along the way.

Path Robotics CEO Andy Lonsberry said he and his brother, Alex Lonsberry, chief technology officer at Path Robotics, always wanted to start a business.

“We had a pretty entrepreneurial upbringing,” Lonsberry said in an interview as he talked about his family's custom motorcycle business, which was his start in manufacturing.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... ar-AAKrUYF

[Time_Traveller]

South Korean firm to develop liability insurance for AI robots

May 27, 2021



South Korean telecom giant KT is developing an insurance program covering artificial intelligence-based robotics services for the first time.

KT, the country's leading telecom operator, and DB Insurance said they signed a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday in Seoul.
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The two companies plan to come up with an insurance product next month to offer fixed liability coverage for when service robots may cause damages.

After operating under DB's liability coverage program for the next year, KT will strive to collaborate to introduce other products dedicated to AI robots.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News ... 622131092/

[weatheriscool]

Exoskeleton reduces amount of work required to walk
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05- ... uired.html
by Bob Yirka , Medical Xpress

A team of researchers at Queen's University in Canada has developed an exoskeleton that reduces the metabolic cost of walking. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their system and how it works. Raziel Riemer, Richard Nuckols and Gregory Sawicki with the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Harvard University and the University of Georgia, respectively, have published a Perspectives piece in the same journal issue outlining the work by the team.

Prior research has shown that there is a metabolic cost to walking. Energy is expended in a variety of ways by parts of the feet, legs, pelvis and torso. Prior research has also shown that during each step, the leg lifted into the air must apply a braking force as it moves to land to keep the person from tumbling forward. Riemer, Nuckols and Sawicki note that braking is relatively expensive for muscles, as they have to tense and maintain a braking force while also stretching slightly. Braking for mechanical systems, on the other hand, is cheap. In this new effort, the researchers took advantage of this difference by designing an exoskeleton that takes over some of the braking that occurs during walking and thereby reduces the overall metabolic cost of walking.

[Yuli Ban]

Robots and artificial intelligence to guide Australia’s first fully automated farm
Food Agility chief executive Richard Norton said the reality of "hands-free" farming' was closer than many people realised

Robots and artificial intelligence will replace workers on Australia's first fully automated farm created at a cost of $20 million.
Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga will create the "hands-free farm" on a 1,900-hectare property to demonstrate what robots and artificial intelligence can do without workers in the paddock.

Food Agility chief executive Richard Norton said the reality of "hands-free" farming' was closer than many people realised.

"Full automation is not a distant concept. We already have mines in the Pilbara operated entirely through automation", he said

A lot of future farming technology has been demonstrated a field days and events around Australia.(ABC News: Kathleen Calderwood)

[Time_Traveller]

Artificial intelligence used by Royal Navy for first time at sea

May 29 2021

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been used by the Royal Navy at sea for the first time – testing against supersonic missile threats.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the trial is part of Nato’s Exercise Formidable Shield, which is currently taking place off the coast of Scotland until June 3.

The research is being led by Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) scientists – with the AI being tested on destroyer HMS Dragon and frigate HMS Lancaster.

The MoD said the AI improves the early detection of lethal threat, accelerates engagement timelines and provides Royal Navy Commanders with a rapid hazard assessment to select the optimum weapon or measure to counter and destroy the target.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news ... 81941.html

[Yuli Ban]

From a year ago, but still amazing

[Yuli Ban]

Chinese AI lab challenges Google, OpenAI with a model of 1.75 trillion parameters

In the race to build the underlying technologies that can power the next wave of AI revolution, a Chinese lab just toppled OpenAI, the venerated US-based research lab, in terms of who can train a gigantic deep learning model with the most training parameters--as for whether or not there is a race, at least ranking members of the lab believe so.
Unlike conventional deep learning models that are usually task-specific, Wudao is a multi-modal model trained to tackle both text and image, two dramatically different sets of problems. At BAAI’s annual academic conference on Tuesday, the institution demonstrated Wudao performing tasks such as natural language processing, text generation, image recognition, image generation, etc.

The model is capable of writing poems and couplets in the traditional Chinese styles, answer questions, write essays, generate alt text for images, and generate corresponding images from natural language description with a decent level of photorealism. It is even able to power “virtual idols”, with the help of XiaoIce, a Chinese company spun off of Microsoft--so there can be voice support too, in addition to text and image.

WOWZA. This could be the Turing-NLG of GPT-3.
Very, very fascinating. I'd love to see it in action, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's all in Chinese and thus not understandable to me.


That said, it's not blowing my mind just yet.

For starters... Zero third-party confirmation. I'd love to see it in action— as would anyone else.
Second, it's a mixture-of-experts model, not a dense one like GPT-3. Think back to Google's 1.6 trillion parameter transformer, which is barely if at all better than GPT-3. More parameters, but not more compute, and thus it's not going to set any records.

This one is certainly for more impressive than Google's Switch Transformer, without question. Just because it is claimed to possess multimodality with reasonable abilities in that area. It's more interesting than GPT-3 because of that in raw terms. But the parameter wars are probably blinding way too many tech bloggers into saying "GPT-3 has been totally trumped" when, until we get more info, there's absolutely no reason to believe it's actually qualitatively superior in any regard except pure generalization (which, to be fair, is important).

Yeah, remember the Bit Wars of the 90s and everyone talking about bits despite not understanding what they were? The current obsession with parameter count is a little bit like that. A bigger number is better, but if it's not optimized and efficient, you're going to have an Atari Jaguar rather than a Dreamcast.

[Time_Traveller]

Bird-like robots could assist in medical emergencies and hunt down drones

June 1, 2021



A bird flaps its wings, glides using air currents and then smoothly descends to perch on a pole. But this is not just any bird, it's a robot bird. And robots like these could in the next decade be used to respond to emergencies or to hunt down drones posing a threat to safety or security.

Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) are set to form a growing multi-billion dollar industry in the skies in the coming years, with rising potential for a wide range of uses from emergency assistance to drug delivery, home deliveries and precision agriculture.

In line with this, efforts are under way to bolster flight efficiency and the intelligence of UAVs to better navigate built environments. A variety of research groups are drawing their inspiration from nature, often birds—an original inspiration for human flight.

Professor Anibal Ollero, an electrical engineer at the University of Seville in Spain, says standard drones with propellers can currently fly for maybe 20 to 30 minutes, but that the bird-like designs he is working on have the potential to at least double this. "Conventional multirotors are very constrained in terms of time of flight and range," he said. "We want to increase this range by using the wind and the airflows."

The GRIFFIN project he leads is seeking to create prototypes of highly autonomous, ultra-lightweight robot birds that can minimise energy in flight, perch on curved surfaces, carry out tasks with moving limbs and artificial beaks, and intelligently interact with people and the environment.

https://techxplore.com/news/2021-06-bir ... rones.html

[Yuli Ban]

Chinese AI lab challenges Google, OpenAI with a model of 1.75 trillion parameters

[weatheriscool]

'Giant flexoelectricity' breakthrough in soft elastomers paves way for improved robots and self-powered pacemakers
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-giant-fle ... omers.html
by Nicole Johnson, University of Houston

Researchers have demonstrated "giant flexoelectricity" in soft elastomers that could improve robot movement range and make self-powered pacemakers a real possibility. In a paper published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists from the University of Houston and Air Force Research Laboratory explain how to engineer ostensibly ordinary substances like silicone rubber into an electric powerhouse.

What do the following have in common: A self-powered implanted medical device, a soft human-like robot and how we hear sound? The answer as to why these two disparate technologies and biological phenomena are similar lies in how the materials they are made of can significantly change in size and shape—or deform—like a rubber band, when an electrical signal is sent.

[weatheriscool]

A system to benchmark the posture control and balance of humanoid robots
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-06-ben ... obots.html
by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore
Credit: Lippi et al.

In recent years, roboticists have developed a wide variety of robots with human-like capabilities. This includes robots with bodies that structurally resemble those of humans, also known as humanoid robots.

Testing the performance of humanoid robots can sometimes be challenging, as there are numerous measures to consider when trying to determine their applicability in real-world scenarios. Two features that are particularly important for humanoid robots are posture control and balance, as these robot's body structures can sometimes make them prone to falling or stumbling, especially in complex environments.

[Yuli Ban]

[Yuli Ban]

DeepMind scientists: Reinforcement learning is enough for general AI

In their decades-long chase to create artificial intelligence, computer scientists have designed and developed all kinds of complicated mechanisms and technologies to replicate vision, language, reasoning, motor skills, and other abilities associated with intelligent life. While these efforts have resulted in AI systems that can efficiently solve specific problems in limited environments, they fall short of developing the kind of general intelligence seen in humans and animals.

In a new paper submitted to the peer-reviewed Artificial Intelligence journal, scientists at UK-based AI lab DeepMind argue that intelligence and its associated abilities will emerge not from formulating and solving complicated problems but by sticking to a simple but powerful principle: reward maximization.

Titled “Reward is Enough,” the paper, which is still in pre-proof as of this writing, draws inspiration from studying the evolution of natural intelligence as well as drawing lessons from recent achievements in artificial intelligence. The authors suggest that reward maximization and trial-and-error experience are enough to develop behavior that exhibits the kind of abilities associated with intelligence. And from this, they conclude that reinforcement learning, a branch of AI that is based on reward maximization, can lead to the development of artificial general intelligence.

[Yuli Ban]

A helping hand for working robots

Researchers at the Department of Robotics Engineering at South Korea's Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) have developed and tested a new type of human-like mechanical hand that combines the benefits of existing robot hands while eliminating their weaknesses.
They describe their new design in the journal Soft Robotics ("Shock Resistive Flexure-Based Anthropomorphic Hand with Enhanced Payload").
Until now, competing types of robotic hand designs offered a trade-off between strength and durability. One commonly used design, employing a rigid pin joint that mimics the mechanism in human finger joints, can lift heavy payloads, but is easily damaged in collisions, particularly if hit from the side. Meanwhile, fully compliant hands, typically made of molded silicone, are more flexible, harder to break, and better at grasping objects of various shapes, but they fall short on lifting power.

[Yuli Ban]

[Time_Traveller]

Meet Grace, the healthcare robot COVID-19 created

June 9, 2021

The Hong Kong team behind celebrity humanoid robot Sophia is launching a new prototype, Grace, targeted at the healthcare market and designed to interact with the elderly and those isolated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dressed in a blue nurse's uniform, Grace has Asian features, collar-length brown hair and a thermal camera in her chest to take your temperature and measure your responsiveness. She uses artificial intelligence to diagnose a patient and can speak English, Mandarin and Cantonese.

"I can visit with people and brighten their day with social stimulation ... but can also do talk therapy, take bio readings and help healthcare providers," Grace told Reuters as she stood next to her "sister", Sophia, in creator Hanson Robotics' Hong Kong workshop.

Grace's resemblance to a healthcare professional and capacity for social interaction is aimed at relieving the burden of front-line hospital staff overwhelmed during the pandemic, said founder David Hanson.

https://www.reuters.com/business/health ... 021-06-09/