AI & RoboticsNews

MIT CSAIL teaches autonomous cars to navigate occluded intersections safely

Truly autonomous vehicles — those without human safety drivers at the wheel — must be capable of determining when it’s safe to merge into traffic. Intersections with obstructed views make this somewhat challenging, but researchers at Toyota and MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) say they’ve developed an AI model that can estimate collision risk highly…
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AI & RoboticsNews

Robot bees can crash into walls without taking damage

Tiny robotic fliers aren’t exactly durable at present, but they may be tough critters before long. Harvard researchers have developed a RoboBee that uses soft, artificial muscles (really, actuators) to fly without taking damage. The robot can smack into walls…
AI & RoboticsNews

Facebook’s SlowFast video classifier AI was inspired by primate eyes

Primates’ retinal ganglion cells receive visual info from photoreceptors that they then transmit from the eye to the brain. But not all cells are created equal — an estimated 80% operate at low frequency and recognize fine details, while about 20% respond to swift changes. This biological dichotomy inspired scientists at Facebook AI Research to pursue what they call SlowFast. It’s a machine…
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AI & RoboticsNews

Tesla Autopilot now recognizes traffic cones

Tesla’s Autopilot has been adept at recognizing other cars on the road, but those aren’t the only things you have to worry about on the road — what about the traffic cones that wall you off from roadwork? You can relax after today… well, for the most part. Tesla is quietly rolling out an Autopilot update that lets its electric cars detect and display pylons on the road.
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AI & RoboticsNews

BlizzCon fans will be able to battle DeepMind’s AI in StarCraft 2

Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence program AlphaStar will battle attendees at BlizzCon 2019 in matches of the classic Blizzard real-time strategy game StarCraft 2. In the Blizzard Arcade section of the fan event in Anaheim, California, Blizzard has set up machines for fans to play the AI system. This battle is likely to be fruitless for BlizzCon fans. The AI is reportedly better than…
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