This Week's Awesome Stories From Around the Web (Through February 11th)

Understanding Agent Cooperation Joel Leibo, Vinicius Zambaldi, Marc Lanctot, Janusz Marecki, Thore Graepel Google DeepMind Blog "Recent progress in artificial intelligence and specifically deep reinforcement learning provides us with the tools to look at the problem of social dilemmas through a new lens... we showed that we can apply the modern AI technique of deep multi-agent reinforcement learning to age-old questions in social science such as the mystery of the emergence of cooperation." Agility Robotics Introduces Cassie, a Dynamic and Talented Robot Delivery Ostrich Evan Ackerman IEEE Spectrum "Agility Robotics, a spin-off of Oregon State University, is officially announcing a shiny new bipedal robot named Cassie. Cassie is a dynamic walker, meaning that it walks much more like humans do than most of the carefully plodding bipedal robots we're used to seeing... Cassie has some work to do before it's ready to be hauling groceries up stairs for you, but we're very much looking forward to watching this robot taking more steps toward robust and dynamic legged locomotion." How Escape Rooms and Live Theater Are Paving the Way for VR Bryan Bishop The Verge "Cinema has had more than a century to develop its own language of shots, cuts, and transitions, while storytelling in VR is still in its infancy... creators seem to be zeroing in on interactive, experiential moments as one of the key building blocks of VR storytelling. One of Chris Milk's next projects is a piece set in the Planet of the Apes universe that will lean heavily on AI to drive interactive character performances."