AI is getting more life-like by copying a trick from human children

When children first learn to crawl, walk, and run it is a process full of trial and error -- expressed with frustrating cries and bumped heads. This tender learning process from early childhood may seem like an innately human experience, but it's actually incredibly similar to what engineers at the University of California, Berkeley sent their bipedal robot Cassie through in order to teach it to walk. Dancing and fighting robots, like those made by and parodied of Boston Dynamics' robots, have taken the internet by storm in the past few years. But what these videos don't show are the fine-tuned and choreographed movements often lurking in their code. Zhongyu Li is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Berekely studying robotic locomotion.