There are some who believe that AI combined with robots could mean the end of humanity, where one days there will be a robot uprising where they will take over the Earth. It looks like we could be inching towards that future, where researchers at MIT have developed an algorithm that could help robots predict how humans move.
Doomsday jokes aside, this algorithm actually has quite a bit of practical purpose. Its intention is for industrial use where it will help allow robots to better coexist with human workers, especially on the factory floor. This is because robots are still relatively simple where they could get in the way of humans walking. By creating an algorithm that allows robots to predict the path of humans, it will allow them to walk from one end to the other without bumping into others.
Being able to detect obstacles isn’t a new tech as we have seen in robot vacuum cleaners and also self-driving cars, but instead of merely relying on the distance between the robot and the object, this algorithm will help the robot predict the trajectory based on a collection of reference movements.
This would allow the robot to predict and anticipate your movements, where it will be smart enough to know that when you’ve started moving, there’s a small chance that you will suddenly change course. It is a very interesting application that could make robots in the factory more useful, and at the same time reduce the number of potential accidents between humans and robots.
Filed in . Read more about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Science. Source: news.mit.edu