Robots Are Learning To Use Tools By Watching YouTube Videos

Our future is promised to be filled with robots equipped to perform all sorts of jobs, and artificial intelligence will pave the way to making that reality possible. Deep learning has received a lot of attention as of late — we've detailed it a few times in the past — and latest among it is a project by researchers using YouTube videos of people cooking to teach robots how to use tools. The efforts were recently detailed in a report available to the public.

You've likely heard about deep learning artificial intelligence in relation to Facebook, which is using the technology to increasing degrees for many things, which could one day include protection mechanisms to keep you from embarrassing yourself.

More than just Facebook is using deep learning, however, and as part of it researchers at NICTA and the University of Maryland have demonstrated using freely available YouTube videos to help robots learn to use tools, including both recognizing what the tool is and how to use it properly.

In this case, a total of 88 YouTube videos on cooking were used, with data from them ultimately being spun into commands for a robot to use. In the future, this could pave the way for robots to become smarter by watching YouTube videos the same way their human counterparts do.

SOURCE: Venture Beat