A robot that can figure out new tasks based on the ones it knows - VIDEO

Pour a robot a glass of water, and you quench its thirst for a day. But teach a robot to pour a cup of water and you are somewhere on par with researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology’s Hasegawa Group. Roboticists and software engineers there have implemented a kind of self-replicating neural technology into their robot that enables it not only to perform tasks but also to learn as it goes, integrating prior knowledge into new tasks and environments.

In other words, the robot learns as it goes. This ability is imparted by an algorithmic technology called the Self-Organizing Incremental Neural Network (SOINN) developed by the researchers to give their ‘bot more mental dexterity. To borrow an example from the video below, the robot can fill up a glass of water from a bottle via pre-programmed instructions. But if halfway through the task its overseer asks it to chill the water, the robot will actually stop and think about the next steps.


/Popular Science/

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