Augmented Archives - Artificial Intelligence

Military seeks to train and aid medics and mechanics using artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality

aiuniverse — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 06:45:20 +0000

Source – https://www.militaryaerospace.com/

Goal is for military mechanics and medics to perform tasks within and beyond their skills with help from real-time AI and augmented reality assistants.

ARLINGTON, Va. – U.S. military researchers are asking industry to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technology that perceives the environment, reasons about physical tasks, and models the user — all in real-time.

Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., issued a broad agency announcement (HR001121S0015) last Friday for the Perceptually Enabled Task Guidance (PTG) project.

The goal is to enable military mechanics, medics, and other specialists to perform tasks within and beyond their skills by providing just-in-time feedback and instructions for physical tasks.

The AI will capitalize on commercially available sensor technologies to see what the user sees and hear what the user hears, and will provide information and instruction to the user using augmented reality.

Military personnel must perform an increasing number of tasks and more complex tasks than ever before, DARPA researchers explain. Mechanics, for example, must repair more types of sophisticated machines and platforms, and Medics must perform more procedures over extended periods of time.

The goal of the PTG program is to make users more versatile by expanding their skills and more proficient by reducing their errors by using AI assistants that provide just-in-time visual and audio feedback.

Users of PTG assistants will wear head-mounted cameras and microphones so that the assistant can see and hear what the user does. Users also will wear augmented reality headsets that enable assistants to provide auditory and graphics feedback.

The assistant will learn about the user’s tasks by ingesting knowledge from checklists, illustrated manuals, training videos, and related information.

Users may ask the assistant questions like “what do I do next?” When a user makes a critical mistake, the system should warn the user and suggest remedial action. When a task is new to a user, the assistant should walk the user through the necessary steps.

PTG technology will take advantage of recent advances in deep learning for video and speech analysis, automated reasoning for task and plan monitoring, and augmented reality for human-computer interfaces.

The program, moreover, is looking for ways to address four key problems: knowledge transfer, perceptual ground, perceptual attention, and user modeling.

Knowledge transfer will enable AI assistants to learn from instructions intended for humans, with an emphasis on checklists, illustrated manuals, and training videos.

Perceptual grounding will align the objects, settings, actions, sounds, and words recognized by an assistant with the terms it uses to describe and model tasks, so as to map observations to its task knowledge.

Perceptual attention will enable assistants to pay attention to what’s relevant to tasks, while ignoring extraneous stimuli, and respond to unexpected events that may alter a user’s goals or suggest a new task.

User modeling, meanwhile, will help the AI assistant determine how much information to present to users and when to do so, taking into account what the users, a physical model of what the users are doing, and a model of how well the user can pay attention based on his emotional state.

The PTG program is seeking proposals in two technical areas — the first for fundamental research into knowledge transfer, perceptual grounding, perceptual attention, and user modeling; and the second for integrated demonstrations of assistants for mechanics, medics, or aircraft pilots.

DARPA experts will brief industry virtually from 1 to 4:45 p.m. on 18 March 2021 via Zoom Webinar. Register for the briefings online at https://www.schafertmd.com/DARPA/I2O/PTG/PD/?p=registration. More information about the PTG proposers day briefings is online at https://www.schafertmd.com/DARPA/I2O/PTG/PD/.

Companies interested should submit abstracts no later than 31 March 2021, and full proposals no later than 14 May 2021, to the DARPA BAA Website at https://baa.darpa.mil. More information is online at https://beta.sam.gov/opp/39d76d1a5c684eb0a6c834f17aaa678d/view.

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Augmented vs. artificial intelligence: What’s the difference?

aiuniverse — Sat, 18 Nov 2017 06:08:35 +0000

Source – techtarget.com

We’re all aware of how powerful companies would become if they had such a technology in their hands, with its added benefits allowing them outpace the competition, get more business or raise more capital — it’s easy to see why everyone is claiming to have it. And with both the average person (and sometimes, even the more tech-savvy person) viewing the highly sophisticated software as the turning point to our intelligence-driven future, why wouldn’t it be called AI?

There’s a catch — true artificial intelligence does not exist and will not exist for at least a decade, even though the AI industry is predicted to be worth nearly $3 billion this year alone. Because of this reality, it begs the question: If we aren’t currently experiencing true AI, then how can we categorize the current state of advanced algorithms and technology? The answer is simple. Right now, we’re living in the era of augmented intelligence.

What exactly is augmented intelligence?

From the surface, augmented intelligence looks nearly identical to artificial intelligence, but there is one major difference: There’s a person, like a programmer, pulling the strings behind the scenes in each and every possible scenario the AI program may need to act upon or telling the computer how it needs to learn. While machines using augmented intelligence can often act and react like humans, these actions are only based on human inputted information. In other words, and in very simplistic terms, a software developer inputs several “if this, then that” scenarios and creates a near-real-world reaction that a machine is able to act upon. Even when using advanced machine learning, a developer is inputting the logic of learning and the reasoning behind it. The key factor that makes this intelligence augmented is the ongoing manual intervention which dictates how, if and when a machine reacts.

What qualifies as artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence can be defined as the creation of a machine that can replace and perform tasks that normally require human intelligence and reasoning. Robots today can replace many human tasks, however, the most critical pieces that define true artificial intelligence are the main traits that create human reasoning or logic (beyond knowledge): morals and ethics.

First, an artificially intelligent machine should have morals, meaning it must be able to define for itself right from wrong within the context of its situation, position, place in the world and more. For example, if an autonomous vehicle is tasked with a scenario where it must put either one or multiple lives at risk, it must be able to make a decision in the blink of an eye. This decision, which takes multiple real-time elements and considerations into account, includes “living” (or not) with the consequence of that very decision.

Next, this technology must have its own set of ethics that governs its behavior and learns from its experiences. Principles, that while guided, are self-imposed and self-governed. For example, if a search-and-rescue drone can fulfill a non-life-threatening but critical job while imposing on someone else’s privacy or property, should it do so? And should there be consequences if the drone breaches privacy but no one knows?

While logic, in its most basic state, can be programmed into a machine (i.e., if this happens, then this is the appropriate response), true logic is deeply rooted in both morals and ethics that drive the machine — no pun intended— and are learned and instilled in each human throughout their lifetime, backed by generations that came before them and thousands of years of culture. In order for authentic artificial intelligence to take form, machines or bots powered by this revolutionary technology will need to meet these qualifiers to start “thinking” for themselves to match basic human instinct and reasoning. In fact, true artificial intelligence means the machine can change its morals and ethics with time and experience, and perhaps even act against them if the situation calls for it. And if this indeed becomes reality, where machines can act like humans and work against their own preprogrammed ethics, any attempt to limit its behavior or outcome will be futile.

Now, when will we reach the era of true artificial intelligence?

Despite its newfound reputation as the industry golden child, there has still been no instance of true artificial intelligence. While augmented intelligence has masked itself as artificial intelligence in a few instances, like when it was reported Facebook decided to shut down its experimental AI bots because they had created their own language, there was always a “Great and Powerful Oz” figure behind the machine. This speculation and vision of a futuristic world, where artificial bots think for themselves and live among us in everyday, is likely quite some time away, so don’t expect to see Chappie walking down the street anytime soon. Moreover, when it happens, do we really think we will be able to control it?

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