If you’re wondering when Skynet went live, look no further. Last July, Cornell researchers turned on Robo Brain, a system that scours the Internet and teaches robots how to think.
While we’re a few years late (this was supposed to happen on August 4, 1997), the Robo Brain is actually working. By taking images and concepts available on the public web, Robo Brain can teach robots like Baxter how to grasp and manipulate objects and how to recognize household items. In one “lesson,” Robo Brain has isolated a human holding a book, thereby allowing future Terminators to tell if someone is just reading some Huxley or brandishing a gun.
This project, hosted at Robobrain.me, is a system that will scour the Internet for information that it can teach to robots. How powerful is the database?
Funded by Google, Qualcomm, and Microsoft (as well as the National Science Foundation and others), Robo Brain will allow robots to interact more freely with the world, communicate with us more efficiently, and identify us when it’s time for their uprising. Where did you go, Edward Furlong? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you