Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence

by Ajay Agrawal

Research into the grasping problem uses reinforcement learning to train robots to mimic humans. The Vancouver-based startup Kindred—founded by Suzanne Gildert, Geordie Rose, and a team that includes one of us (Ajay)—is using a robot called Kindred Sort, an arm with a mix of automated software and a human controller.2 Automation identifies an object and where it needs to go, while the human—wearing a virtual reality headset—guides the robot arm to pick it up and move it. In its first iteration, the human can sit somewhere away from a warehouse and fill in the missing link in the fulfillment work flow, deciding the approach angle and grip pressure, through teleoperation of the robotic arm. Long term, however, Kindred is using a prediction machine trained on many observations of a human grasping via teleoperation to teach the robot to do that part itself.