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IBM Wants Watson to Teach Robots Some Social Skills
Because language is only part of human communication, IBM is using machine learning to teach robots social skills like gestures, eye movements, and voice intonations.
IBM is using some of the artificial-intelligence techniques that emerged from its Watson project to teach robots to better understand and mimic human communication.
During a keynote speech at a conference called RoboBusiness held in San Jose, California, this week, Robert High, chief technology officer of Watson at IBM, demonstrated some of the techniques his team is working on using a small humanoid robot.
The robot, a Nao model from the company Aldebaran, spoke with realistic intonation and made appropriate hand gestures during a conversation with High. It even exhibited a little impatience and sarcasm, miming looking at its watch, for example, when asking High to hurry up with his talk.
Speaking with MIT Technology Review after the demo, High admitted that this interaction was prerecorded, because the system doesn’t always work well in noisy environments. But he said the capabilities demonstrated reflected real research. His team is using machine-learning algorithms to learn from video footage to associate appropriate gestures and intonations with different phrases. High says it is important to do this because language alone is only part of human communications.
“We augment the words with physical gestures to clarify this and that,” High said. “You can bring into the [robot] interface this gesturing, this body language, the eye movement, the subtle cues that we as humans use when we communicate with one another to reinforce our understand of what we’re expressing.”
Robot interaction is becoming an important issue as industrial robots start moving into new settings, requiring them to work alongside people, and as companies try to develop robots for use in stores, offices, and even the home.
High added that the project was still at an early stage. “We’re still experimenting, seeing what’s doable and what’s useful, and what will have economic interest,” he said.
IBM used a range of artificial-intelligence techniques to develop Watson, which proved capable of winning the game show Jeopardy! after mining vast quantities of information and extracting meaning from the text (see “A Worthwhile Contest for Artificial Intelligence”).
That effort has evolved into a much broader project involving many more AI approaches under the umbrella term “cognitive computing” (see “Watson Adds Deep Learning to Its Repertoire”). IBM has made many of the machine-learning capabilities developed through this program available to developers through an online application-programming interface.
Some robot makers are already testing these APIs as a way give their products the ability to answer queries spoken in different ways, and to look up useful information (see “A Japanese Robot Is Learning the American Way”).
Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/541691/ibm-wants-watson-to-teach-robots-some-social-skills/
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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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