Robots to use new AI tool to evaluate all possibilities before making decisions

IMAGE: Brendan Englot at Stevens Institute of Technology will leverage a new variant of a classic artificial intelligence tools to create robots that can predict and manage the risks involved in... view more Just like humans, when robots have a decision to make there are often many options and hundreds of potential outcomes. Robots have been able to simulate a handful of these outcomes to figure out which course of action will be the most likely to lead to success. But what if one of the other options were equally likely to succeed - and safer? The Office of Naval Research has awarded Brendan Englot, an MIT-trained mechanical engineer at Stevens Institute of Technology, a 2020 Young Investigator Award of $508, 693 to leverage a new variant of a classic artificial intelligence tool to allow robots to predict the many possible outcomes of their actions, and how likely they are to occur. The framework will allow robots to figure out which option is the best way to achieve a goal, by understanding which options are the safest, most efficient - and least likely to fail.