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Cross training helps humans and robots work better together
Like many people, I spend most of my time worrying about the inevitable robot uprising. MIT is doing its bit to put off that day with its experiments in teaching robots and humans to work together peacefully. Using cross-training techniques, the researchers got robots and humans to swap jobs so they could see things from the others' point of view and carry out tasks more efficiently when working together.
Currently, research into teaching robots how to carry out a task as part of a team generally relies on the concept of an interactive reward. That is, if the robot performs a task to their liking, the operator gives it a positive response and if it doesn't, a negative response. The robot notes the responses and changes its behavior accordingly.
This is somewhat odd because humans don’t respond well to that sort of training. It’s a bit like playing a game of “hot and cold” without the more meaningful feedback that people prefer. According to MIT, recent military studies have shown that interactive rewards are an ineffective way of teaching people and perhaps the same is true of robots – at least, when they are working with people.
“People aren’t robots, they don’t do things the same way every single time,” said Julie Shah, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT and head of the Interactive Robotics Group in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. “And so there is a mismatch between the way we program robots to perform tasks in exactly the same way each time and what we need them to do if they are going to work in concert with people.”
Cross training is a more efficient training method that people do respond well to and which Shah suspected would be useful for robots as well. In cross training, workers swap jobs on a periodic basis. It’s a standard practice in small businesses where employees must wear more than one hat and where learning a new job is often a matter of getting thrown in at the deep end. It’s now being adopted by larger firms because it widens skill sets, reduces boredom and improves morale by giving workers more of a sense of growth and appreciation. It also allows for a better understanding of the other person’s job and how it’s done, which is the important thing as far as robots are concerned if they’re to work with people.
As applied by MIT, cross training involved designing a new robot algorithm to allow robots to learn from cross training by letting them learn by demonstration as well as interactive response. Demonstration is already being used in other robotic projects, such Georgia Tech’s work with a PR2 robot. The robots could watch their human partners and learn how they carried out their tasks.
The training saw two team humans and robot teams carrying out simulated tasks in a virtual environment, with one team acting as a control using conventional interactive feedback. Halfway through the session, the teams swapped jobs with the robots and completed the task. After the simulation, the teams carried out the tasks for real.
The results revealed that the humans and robots in the cross-training teams interacted 71 percent more often than the control group and the amount of time where the humans waited for the robots to finish a task decreased by 41 percent. The same was also true of the robots, whose algorithms recorded less uncertainty as to what the human would do next. On questionnaires, cross-training teammates also said that the robots carried out the test to their preferences more often and they had more trust in the robots than the control group.
“When the person trains the robot through reward it is one-way: The person says ‘good robot’ or the person says ‘bad robot,’ and it’s a very one-way passage of information,” Shah said. “But when you switch roles the person is better able to adapt to the robot’s capabilities and learn what it is likely to do, and so we think that it is adaptation on the person’s side that results in a better team performance.”
This cross training often has less to do with the robot than the human working with it. A robot doesn’t have any actual experiences or understanding. It’s really just a collection of sensors, databases and algorithms. However, if people start to anthropomorphize robots, it helps in working with them.
According to Kerstin Dautenhahn, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Hertfordshire, “People easily attribute human characteristics to a robot and treat it socially, so it is not entirely surprising that this transfer from the human-human domain to the human-robot domain not only made the teamwork more efficient, but also enhanced the experience for the participants, in terms of trusting the robot,” Dautenhahn says.
The MIT results will be presented in a paper to at the International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction in Tokyo next month.
Source: MIT
Source: http://www.gizmag.com/mit-cross-training-robot/26223/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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