Researchers are using generative AI and other techniques to teach robots new skills—including tasks they could perform in homes.

… What separates this new crop of robots is their software. Instead of the traditional painstaking planning and training, roboticists have started using deep learning and neural networks to create systems that learn from their environment on the go and adjust their behavior accordingly. At the same time, new, cheaper hardware, such as off-the-shelf components and robots like Stretch, is making this sort of experimentation more accessible.

Broadly speaking, there are two popular ways researchers are using AI to train robots: reinforcement learning, an AI technique that allows systems to improve through trial and error, to get robots to adapt their movements in new environments, and imitation learning, models learn to perform tasks by, for example, imitating the actions of a human teleoperating a robot or using a VR headset to collect data on a robot.  — Read More