Sit, Heel, Compute: Computers Learn Better by Imitating Dogs

From guide dogs for the visually impaired to search-and-rescue animals, canines can be trained to help with a wide range of critical tasks. So, it might come as no surprise that researchers are now designing machines to learn more like dogs. Computer scientists have modeled machines to learn like dogs, with the short-term goal of improving human interactions with robots and the long-term hope of more efficiently training service animals. These machines rely on human feedback. Real animal trainees, like dogs, also provide helpful, subtle cues about their understanding to human trainers, and now that aspect of a training relationship is being transferred to machine learning.