Facebook Trains An AI To Navigate Without Needing a Map 25
A team at Facebook AI has created a reinforcement learning algorithm that lets a robot find its way in an unfamiliar environment without using a map. MIT Technology Review reports: Using just a depth-sensing camera, GPS, and compass data, the algorithm gets a robot to its goal 99.9% of the time along a route that is very close to the shortest possible path, which means no wrong turns, no backtracking, and no exploration. This is a big improvement over previous best efforts. [...] Facebook trained bots for three days inside AI Habitat, a photorealistic virtual mock-up of the interior of a building, with rooms and corridors and furniture. In that time they took 2.5 billion steps -- the equivalent of 80 years of human experience. Others have taken a month or more to train bots in a similar task, but Facebook massively sped things up by culling the slowest bots from the pool so that faster ones did not have to wait at the finish line each round.
As ever, the team doesn't know exactly how the AI learned to navigate, but a best guess is that it picked up on patterns in the interior structure of the human-designed environments. Facebook is now testing its algorithm in real physical spaces using a LoCoBot robot.
As ever, the team doesn't know exactly how the AI learned to navigate, but a best guess is that it picked up on patterns in the interior structure of the human-designed environments. Facebook is now testing its algorithm in real physical spaces using a LoCoBot robot.
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GPS + Compass (Score:5, Informative)
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That is mostly meaningless, though, since it is "GPS + Compass."
The most useful statistic would without GPS, but with a compass, as a compass is generally reliable and functions continuously. Especially if it also has a digital "gyroscope." Those at least work well when motionless, so it could stop and orient itself periodically.
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And? An input is an input.
Replace GPS with Ultra-Wideband locator when you move out of prototyping.
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"Without GPS + Compass, the success rate dropped to 16%"
It will be further trained by a boy-scout.
Imagine, if you had a dog. (Score:2)
From Black Mirror.
Big deal, I used to navigate without a map or GPS (Score:3)
Here's the secret: I'd stop and ask directions every so often. I didn't always end up taking the shortest possible path, but in the end it always got me where I wanted to go!
Time to open a betting pool. (Score:1)
Who wants to place a wager on how many weeks go by before it kills a homeless person?
Omni Consumer Products. (Nee Facebook) (Score:1)
Give me some mechatronics bits [hackster.io] and you have yourself a pretty good search and kill robot for the interiors of buildings.
Facebook doesn't need to keep fighting the man if they become a defense contractor.
Facebook America++ Freedom Bot v0.2, now with Instagram Training Data. "It only kills the terrorist, usually."
"Just "using GPS (Score:2)
Wow, I'm impressed.
So, in other words... (Score:3)
...it stops and asks for directions?
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How would that culling of the slowest be done? (Score:1)
Why don't they know how it works? (Score:2)
I don't understand that. How can they not know? Don't they have debuggers and logs? Didn't they write the software?
Re: Why don't they know how it works? (Score:3)
The usual answer is that it uses neural networks, which "program" themselves through training. The nets learned to recognize patterns in this specific environment and direct movement based on them. The "programming" is in a myriad of connections that just look like nonsense. The only news here was maybe that their training was faster, but culling doesn't seem new either.
Complex systems exhibit complex behaviors (Score:2)
... sure, now it looks good, but we don't really understand it; so there's no way to predict it. Soon our tech is going to need psychotherapy, and be just as fucked up as we are.
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... sure, now it looks good, but we don't really understand it; so there's no way to predict it. Soon our tech is going to need psychotherapy, and be just as fucked up as we are.
Not true at all. This one time, Microsoft trained a simulated 19 year old girl chat bot with live twitter an... ahh yes, I see what you mean.
"But why did you run over those babies?" (Score:2)
Prosecutor: "But why did you run over those babies?"
AI: "To avoid hitting the CEO and thus encourage Evil."
Put the AI robot on top of a fence post (Score:1)
I'm calling bullshit on the article (Score:2)
Before I spend any time to actually RTFM, I do a sanity check on any "facts" I can find in the synopsis.
(2.5 X 10**9) / 80 = 31,250,000 steps per year
31,250,000 steps per year / 365.25 ~= 85,500 steps per day
What kind of human walks that much (approx. 85 km if a step is half a meter)?
I should give Facebook the benefit of the doubt because this is probably the first time they got something wrong but ... nah, ain't gonna b