Two researchers at Cornell University have developed a large-scale computational system called "Robo Brain" that uses the internet to learn about human behavior and language.
By using internet resources that are made available to the public, Robo Brain will teach other robots different behaviors, such as finding keys, putting dishes away, and manners, including not interrupting people who are having a conversation, according to Yahoo! Tech.
"Our laptops and cellphones have access to all the information we want," said Ashutosh Saxena, assistant professor of computer science at Cornell and lead researcher of the project. "If a robot encounters a situation it has not seen before, it can query 'Robo Brain' in the cloud."
The robot is currently downloading one billion images, 120,000 YouTube videos and 100 million how-to documentaries and appliance manuals, CNET reported. It is also downloading training that was given to Cornell's other robots in their laboratories.
Robo Brain will study these materials so it can learn how to recognize objects and how people use them, and then help other machines to learn this information, as well. For example, Robo Brain could teach a robot that sees a mug that the object is a mug, that it holds liquids, that people carry it by the handle and that it needs to be held upright when it is full to avoid spilling the drink. The robot would also learn that it can tip the mug when it is empty, such as when it is carried to and from the dishwasher.
A system called "structured deep learning" is used in Robo Brain to classify objects, according to CNET. For instance, if a robot saw an armchair, it would classify it as furniture, and, more specifically, that it is meant for sitting. The system then stores the information in a Markov model, which takes the form of a series of points, or "nodes," that are connected by lines, or "edges." The model will look like a huge branching graph, where each state depends on the states before it.
The robot's large-scale database was designed by Aditya Jami, a visiting researcher at Cornell, Yahoo! Tech reported.
"The 'Robo Brain' will look like a gigantic, branching graph with abilities for multi-dimensional queries," Jami explained.
Robo Brain was recently displayed at this year's Robotics: Science and Systems Conference, where Saxena said crowdsourcing would be used to provide the robot with teachers.
Users can give their assistance for the robot now at the official Robo Brain website. People can upvote actions and objects that the robot gets correct, and can also help researchers by leaving comments.
