Gizmag Robot learns to cook by watching YouTube

 Gizmag Robot learns to cook by watching 

YouTube

Our future is promised to be filled with robots equipped to perform all sorts of jobs, and artificial intelligence will pave the way to making that reality possible. Deep learning has received a lot of attention as of late -- we've detailed it a few times in the past -- and latest among it is a project by researchers using YouTube videos of people cooking to teach robots how to use tools. The efforts were recently detailed in a report available to the public.

You've likely heard about deep learning artificial intelligence in relation to Facebook, which is using the technology to increasing degrees for many things, which could one day include protection mechanisms to keep you from embarrassing yourself.

More than just Facebook is using deep learning, however, and as part of it researchers at NICTA and the University of Maryland have demonstrated using freely available YouTube videos to help robots learn to use tools, including both recognizing what the tool is and how to use it properly.

In this case, a total of 88 YouTube videos on cooking were used, with data from them ultimately being spun into commands for a robot to use. In the future, this could pave the way for robots to become smarter by watching YouTube videos the same way their human counterparts do.

A team of American and Australian researchers claim they have created algorithms that enable robots to learn operational skills by watching human activities. They "taught" their robot to cook by showing it some YouTube videos.

Researchers from the University of Maryland and the Australian research center NICTA have been “educating” their robot using the so-called “deep learning” method of artificial intelligence training.

This method implies that a robot receives large chunks of information through a number artificial neural networks, be it audio and video images recognition or other information inputs, then sums the new data up and acts in accordance with the freshly obtained experience.

The robot employs recognition techniques that make it capable of recognizing specific objects, the way they are grasped by the human hand, and even predicting the next action most likely to be made with the object. This means that the robot could analyze and learn how to handle instruments and tools.

Modern robots could thus be “taught” to mechanically repeat a certain operation, e.g. painting a vehicle, yet a machine capable of analyzing the process to learn “how it works” has an invaluable importance for the future of robotics.

The scientists claim that the AI robot created by the researchers was trained to cook using 88 videos of people cooking found on the web. Once the robot analyzed the videos, it was able to generate the commands it would need to cook food.

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Unknown 02:57  No comment

Ancient Sanskrit text mentioned air travel’

Ancient Sanskrit text mentioned air travel

The retired principal of a pilot training centre said at the Indian Science Congress Sunday that the country’s scientists should use technology listed in an ancient Sanskrit text to build indigenous aircraft and promote Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India initiative.

Captain Anand Bodas, who was presenting a paper on ‘Ancient Indian Aviation Technology’, claimed that the science of building and flying a plane was recorded by Maharshi Bharadwaj in Brihad Vimana Shastra, written between 6000 BC and 7000 BC, several millenia before the Wright Brothers built an aeroplane. “Maharshi Bharadwaj said air planes were used to travel from one city to another, from one country to another and from one planet to another,” Bodas said.

“The science should now be used by Indian scientists to build our own planes,” he added. Bodas further said building such planes would be in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India programme.

He also said a Mumbai couple pulled off a demonstration flight on Chowpatty beach before the Wright Brothers went up the air.

Bodas claimed that manuscripts recovered by Mysore’s International Academy of Sanskrit Research in 1952 discard records that Wright Brothers flew the first plane in 1903.

He said planes built centuries ago were nearly 60 feet X 60 feet and were made using 11 alloys, 407 melting pots and 532 furnaces. “Brihad Vimana Shastra had vivid details of 32 systems built in the plane with seven systems for navigation, eight for operational purposes and remaining for war-time purposes. The planes in the scripts also had flexible exhausts called ‘shundaas’ which are absent in modern technology,” he added.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said the scientific community should use Sanskrit for human development. He added that Germans were the first to acknowledge Sanskrit’s importance, but Indians are yet to do it.

Ayurvedic physician Dr Ashwin Sawant, who presented a case study on ancient surgery, indicated that plastic surgery was found in India 3,500 years ago and dentistry was practised 7,000 years ago. “The surgical instruments, about 101 blunt and 20 types of sharp instruments, are used with little variation today. For instance, ‘swastik yantra’ is modern day’s forceps while ‘sharaari shastra’ is today’s scissors. Medical use of leeches for blood-related diseases was mentioned in Sanskrit scripts. It was only recently that US Food and Drug Administration acknowledged use of leeches. It is time Indian medical science makes use of ancient scripts for innovation in medicine,” said Sawant.

Scientist Dr Vijay Bhatkar pointed out that Indian scientists should start studying the texts before the US recognises accuracy of ancient Indian sciences.

Most speakers at the session stressed on the use of Sanskrit texts to forward the Make in India initiative.

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Modi's Make in India campaign forward?

Will jingoism dressed up as science take Modi's Make in India campaign forward?

On Sunday, the Indian Science Congress that is currently underway in Mumbai had 14 sessions covering a wide range of subjects from number theory to environmental health, but what hogged the headlines was an outlandish claim that 7,000 years ago India had planes that could travel between planets.

The speaker who made the claim didn't stop with that. He went on to add finer details of these planes such as their size, number of engines and a RADAR system that could show the shape of a plane and not just the blip.

What's more, there were also assertions that ancient Indians were proficient in surgery and had produced surgical instruments which looked like the modern tools. The claims on surgery were of course attributed to names that are familiar to us - Charaka and Sushruta.

The revelations were not based on any empirical evidence that researchers dug out, but were apparently drawn from ancient texts. The source for the aviation invention was "Vaimanika Prakarana", the details of which abound on the internet, while for surgery, the speaker quoted "Sushruta Samhita" that practitioners of Indian medicine often refer to lend authenticity to their work.

The session that sought to make India proud of its ancient proficiency on science and technology was titled Ancient sciences through Sanskrit and obviously the speakers freaked out. And it was the first time that the century old Indian Science Congress Association, incidentally founded by two British chemists, featured anything like this.

What distinguishes science from pseudosciences is evidence and peer review. Both start with a hypothesis. While science rigorously scrutinises the evidence for and against the hypothesis, pseudoscience looks only for suitable evidence. It either abandons or hides the conflicting evidence. Science needs reproducible results and pays no attention to anecdotes, while pseudoscience relies largely on exceptions, personal testimonies and stories.

And most importantly, science is peer reviewed and it’s progressive - more and more is found on the invention as time progresses, while in pseudoscience, the revelation is static and it adds no value to human life. As the famous Anglo-Irish physicist George Johnston Stoney had noted, "a theory is a supposition which we hope to be true, a hypothesis is a supposition which we expect to be useful; fictions belong to the realm of art; if made to intrude elsewhere, they become either make-believes or mistakes".

The grand proclamations on ancient science at the Science Congress, unfortunately belong to the realm of art. And it was not new either, because we have read it many times in Indian mythology which is full of mind-blowing ideas, limitless imagination and philosophic wisdom. They do have tremendous value for human life and even scientific exploration, but they are not science, but only a work of art. Claiming authorship of technological inventions because they were once fantasised by ancient Indians is against the principle of science that the Indian Science Congress seeks to pursue.

Unfortunately, the claims on ancient science on Sunday reeked of mythology, a certain ideology and pure jingoism. What's the purpose of the claims that India possessed 40-engine inter-planetary planes when the National Aerospace Laboratory is unable to produce even a prototype of an usable passenger aircraft after so many years of its expensive existence? In contrast, Brazil and China, which make no claims to ancient wisdom on aeronautical engineering have thriving aerospace industries. About 96 percent of the component cost of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, reportedly, is on imported items.

The status of technological advances is similar in many other national undertakings such as the DRDO and the Indian nuclear energy sector. Besides the plane, ancient science experts also claim that Indian were pioneers of rocket technology although most of its present successes had to rely on imported expertise and materials.

What's the purpose of the tall claims made by people such as Anand Bodas (the author of the plane story) at the Science Congress? Whatever is the objective, it will certainly not encourage scientific exploration because real scientists and students of science know the primacy of evidence and peer review.

So who does it excite? Charlatans, pseudoscientists and ultra-nationalists. Such a pity that an institution such as the Indian Science Congress Association had been misused for this purpose.

Karl Marx had said in his Das Kapital: "There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.” That is the message the Science Congress should sent out if India wants to catch up with the rest of the world in scientific excellence and not jingoism dressed up as science.

Will ancient knowledge help Indians make everything in India?

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Unknown 02:47  No comment