Our proof technique closely follows that in Section 4.1 of [16]. We use dynamic programming to compute the value iteratively. In particular, we apply backward induction to solve the optimal cost-togo functions, from time step T to the initial state. This function measures the expected overall control cost from a given state to the end, assuming the controller makes the optimal decision at each time. We will show by backward induction that for every t = 0,..., T, V The explicit form of the optimal control policy is obtained by combining Equations (6) and (10).

Grasping objects by a specific part is often crucial for safety and for executing downstream tasks. Yet, learning-based grasp planners lack this behavior unless they are trained on specific object part data, making it a significant challenge to scale object diversity. Instead, we propose LERF-TOGO, Language Embedded Radiance Fields for Task-Oriented Grasping of Objects, which uses vision-language models zero-shot to output a grasp distribution over an object given a natural language query. To accomplish this, we first reconstruct a LERF of the scene, which distills CLIP embeddings into a multi-scale 3D language field queryable with text. However, LERF has no sense of objectness, meaning its relevancy outputs often return incomplete activations over an object which are insufficient for subsequent part queries. LERF-TOGO mitigates this lack of spatial grouping by extracting a 3D object mask via DINO features and then conditionally querying LERF on this mask to obtain a semantic distribution over the object with which to rank grasps from an off-the-shelf grasp planner. We evaluate LERF-TOGO's ability to grasp task-oriented object parts on 31 different physical objects, and find it selects grasps on the correct part in 81% of all trials and grasps successfully in 69%. See the project website at: lerftogo.github.io

Text-guided 3D object generation aims to generate 3D objects described by user-defined captions, which paves a flexible way to visualize what we imagined. Although some works have been devoted to solving this challenging task, these works either utilize some explicit 3D representations (e.g., mesh), which lack texture and require post-processing for rendering photo-realistic views; or require individual time-consuming optimization for every single case. Here, we make the first attempt to achieve generic text-guided cross-category 3D object generation via a new 3D-TOGO model, which integrates a text-to-views generation module and a views-to-3D generation module. The text-to-views generation module is designed to generate different views of the target 3D object given an input caption. prior-guidance, caption-guidance and view contrastive learning are proposed for achieving better view-consistency and caption similarity. Meanwhile, a pixelNeRF model is adopted for the views-to-3D generation module to obtain the implicit 3D neural representation from the previously-generated views. Our 3D-TOGO model generates 3D objects in the form of the neural radiance field with good texture and requires no time-cost optimization for every single caption. Besides, 3D-TOGO can control the category, color and shape of generated 3D objects with the input caption. Extensive experiments on the largest 3D object dataset (i.e., ABO) are conducted to verify that 3D-TOGO can better generate high-quality 3D objects according to the input captions across 98 different categories, in terms of PSNR, SSIM, LPIPS and CLIP-score, compared with text-NeRF and Dreamfields.

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated many low- and middle-income countries, causing widespread food insecurity and a sharp decline in living standards1. In response to this crisis, governments and humanitarian organizations worldwide have distributed social assistance to more than 1.5 billion people2. Targeting is a central challenge in administering these programmes: it remains a difficult task to rapidly identify those with the greatest need given available data3,4. Here we show that data from mobile phone networks can improve the targeting of humanitarian assistance. Our approach uses traditional survey data to train machine-learning algorithms to recognize patterns of poverty in mobile phone data; the trained algorithms can then prioritize aid to the poorest mobile subscribers. We evaluate this approach by studying a flagship emergency cash transfer program in Togo, which used these algorithms to disburse millions of US dollars worth of COVID-19 relief aid. Our analysis compares outcomes—including exclusion errors, total social welfare and measures of fairness—under different targeting regimes. Relative to the geographic targeting options considered by the Government of Togo, the machine-learning approach reduces errors of exclusion by 4–21%. Relative to methods requiring a comprehensive social registry (a hypothetical exercise; no such registry exists in Togo), the machine-learning approach increases exclusion errors by 9–35%. These results highlight the potential for new data sources to complement traditional methods for targeting humanitarian assistance, particularly in crisis settings in which traditional data are missing or out of date. Machine-learning algorithms can take advantage of survey and mobile phone data to help to identify people most in need of aid, complementing traditional methods for targeting humanitarian assistance.

As cell phones have grown increasingly prevalent worldwide, with a projected global penetration level of 73 percent in 2020, research on wealth forecasting from digital trail data has concentrated on mobile phone metadata (GSMA, 2017). Machine learning algorithms based on call detail records (CDR) have recently been proved to yield meaningful estimations of prosperity and well-being at a fine geographical resolution. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence can be used to target poor populations effectively for humanitarian aid using digital indicators. The challenge of assessing who is qualified for humanitarian help and who is not is a key cause of problems in anti-poverty programme management. Typically, programmes target people based on administrative records like tax records or survey-based asset or consumption measurements.

DURBAN, Feb 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Determined to use her skills to fight inequality, South African computer scientist Raesetje Sefala set to work to build algorithms flagging poverty hotspots – developing datasets she hopes will help target aid, new housing or clinics. From crop analysis to medical diagnostics, artificial intelligence (AI) is already used in essential tasks worldwide, but Sefala and a growing number of fellow African developers are pioneering it to tackle their continent's particular challenges. Local knowledge is vital for designing AI-driven solutions that work, Sefala said. Africa is the world's youngest and fastest-growing continent, and tech experts say young, home-grown AI developers have a vital role to play in designing applications to address local problems.

A composition of 10,000 unique cat images generated by the artificial intelligence called GAN (generative adversarial network), no human was involved in the creation of these cats, a machine created them by machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms. The owner will receive the full resolution at 10,000 x 10,000 pixels (100 megapixels) and can ask me to send the full resolution cats images.

A collage of 10,000 unique nonexistent persons generated by the artificial intelligence called GAN (generative adversarial network), no human was involved in the creation of these person images, a machine created them by machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms. The owner will receive the full resolution at 10,000 x 10,000 pixels (100 megapixels) and can ask me to send the full resolution person images.

Each artwork is 512 x 512 pixels and the owner will receive the full resolution at 51200 x 25600 pixels (1.3 Giga Pixel).

When the novel coronavirus reached Togo in March, its leaders, like those of many countries, responded with stay-at-home orders to suppress contagion and an economic assistance program to replace lost income. But the way Togo targeted and delivered that aid was in some ways more tech-centric than many larger and richer countries. No one got a paper check in the mail. Instead, Togo's government quickly assembled a system to support its poorest people with mobile cash payments--a technology more established in Africa than in the rich nations supposedly at the forefront of mobile technology. The most recent payments, funded by nonprofit GiveDirectly, were targeted with help from machine learning algorithms, which seek signs of poverty in satellite photos, and cellphone data.