AI Articles and Analysis about Automation and robotics

As a human, we can often understand the mood, intention, and future action of another person just by looking at them. We see their posture, their facial expression, where their eyes are focused, and we can get a decent understanding of what they might do next. The problem of computer vision for body language is a much harder problem to solve, but we are indeed making progress.

Our cities, streets, homes, and businesses are built for beings that walk on two legs (biped). From stairs to the shape of hallways to the placement of kitchen cabinets, all have been designed for bipeds. The fact that a society of two-legged creatures designed everything around them for bipeds is so obvious most people don’t even think about it, but it becomes a serious issue when talking about the future of robotics.

The vision of an army of small unmanned aerial vehicles streaming through the sky to rapidly deliver food packages has captured the imagination of the public, the media, and most importantly some of the largest companies in the world. Achieving this vision won’t just require overcoming the technological and safety challenges, but also significant buy-in from the public and policy makers.

Several car makers predict they will able to make true self-driving cars in the next few years - as we've covered in our recent self-driving car timeline article. This technology, though, is only valuable if there are plenty of roads these self-driving cars are legally allowed to travel on. Even if the technologies allow for true autonomy, without legal permission the self-driving cars are mostly worthless to individuals and companies.

While in previous decades military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) were very simple pieces of equipment, the technology has advanced rapidly. They are now used all over the world and are a multi-billion dollar industry. According to the Teal Group, current worldwide military UAV production stands at around $2.8 billion, and they project it will grow to $9.4 billion in 2025.

Major companies including GE, Siemens, Intel, Funac, Kuka, Bosch, NVIDIA and Microsoft are all making significant investments in machine learning-powered approaches to improve all aspects of manufacturing. The technology is being used to bring down labor costs, reduce product defects, shorten unplanned downtimes, improve transition times, and increase production speed.

Oil remains one of the most highly valued commodities in the energy sector. Estimates of total energy investment in 2016 tip the scale at approximately $1.7 trillion which represents 2.2 percent of the global GDP. However, as concerns over the environmental impact of energy production and consumption persist, oil and gas companies are actively seeking innovative approaches to achieving their business goals while reducing environmental impact.

The market for military robotics is massive, and many developments can be observed in public competitions, university campuses, and DARPA's own announcements.