People often joke that AI will take over the world, with the quick development and huge advances that have been made in their programming and creation. However, in all seriousness, AI and robotics offer a very interesting insight to technological advancements that can be made to aid humanity and bring our culture into a new world. One such advancement are robot hands that have shown similar dexterity to actual human hands, with the ability to do tasks that are simple for humans, but before had been quite difficult for the AI to achieve. “Researchers at WMG, University of Warwick, have developed novel artificial intelligence algorithms so the robot can learn how to manipulate objects just like humans do. In simulated environments, the robotic hands learn on their own how to coordinate movements and execute tasks like throwing a ball to each other and spinning a pen.”
This new technology can be used in a plethora of ways, and it offers an exciting insight into future possibilities. The idea of robotic hands that can work just as well as human hands is very intriguing, but how exactly do they actually work? How do the hands, and the “brain” connected to them learn to manipulate objects and interact in this way? “The researchers’ approach uses two algorithms. Initially, a planning algorithm produces a few approximate examples of how the hand should be performing a particular task. These examples are then used by a reinforcement learning algorithm that masters the manipulation skills on its own. By taking this approach, the researchers have been able to produce significantly better performance compared to existing methodologies. The simulation environments have been made publicly available for any researcher to use.”
These new and improved robotic hands have many uses, and some of the more immediate to come to mind offer exciting possibilities. Dangerous tasks that previously required human hands to complete, such as nuclear decommissioning, and other similar work can now be achieved by these robots in order to lessen the risk to human life that would have previously been involved. It can also be used in manufacturing, surgery, and several other applications that previously needed the dexterity that only humans could provide at the time. This technology creates a new opportunity for these tasks to be made more efficient and effective with the AI algorithms teaching the hands how to perform them.
This is only one step towards robots that offer a new and exciting look into these learning AI algorithms and robots that are able to interact with the world around them in new ways. ” The future of digitization relies on AI algorithms that can learn autonomously, and to be able to develop algorithms that give Shadow Robot’s hand the ability to operate like a real one is without any human input is an exciting step forward. These autonomous hands could be used in the future to deliver robotic surgeons, to increase the productivity of assembly lines and to replace humans in dangerous jobs such as bomb disposal.”
“In future work, we will let the robots perceive the environment as accurately as humans do, not only through computer vision algorithms that can see the world, but through sensors that detect temperature, force, and vibrations so the robot can learn what to do when it feels those sensations.”