NVIDIA Research has developed a new AI model, called NVIDIA GameGAN, that can generate a fully functional version of Pac-Man, even without understanding a game’s fundamental rules. It was trained on 50,000 episodes of the game, and since GameGAN consists of two competing neural networks – a generator and a discriminator – these GAN-based models are capable of learning to create new content that’s convincing enough to pass for the original. Read more for a video and additional information.
We have seen the future of companion robots, and it all starts with Moxie by Embodied Inc. This animated companion is designed to help promote social, emotional and cognitive development through everyday play-based learning and captivating content. It uses the SocialX platform to allow children to engage with Moxie through natural interaction. Read more for a video, additional pictures and information.
“Never Gonna Give You Up,” a song recorded by British singer and songwriter Rick Astley, was first released on July 27, 1987, but thanks to the internet, it’s been a popular meme for the past 12-years. For those who don’t know, this song was a worldwide number-one hit, initially in the UK, and eventually topped the charts in 25 countries, including the United States. Read more to see what happens when an AI-powered neural network attempts to continuously generate new parts for this song.
Boeing reveals the first unmanned Loyal Wingman aircraft prototype designed for the Royal Australian Air Force. Their main goal is to extend and protect existing aircraft, making them the foundation for the global Boeing Airpower Teaming System aircraft to be developed for other global forces. It uses AI-powered systems to fly independently or in support of manned aircraft while maintaining safe distance between other aircraft. Read more for a video and additional information.
For non-film aficionados, the Roundhay Garden Scene is basically an 1888 short silent actuality film recorded by French inventor Louis Le Prince at Oakwood Grange in Roundhay, Leeds, in the north of England. It’s believed to be the oldest surviving film in existence, but what happens when you use AI-powered neural networks to upscale it to 60FPS? Read more to find out, thanks to Denis Shiryaev.
Hobbyist Denis Shiryaev is back at it again, and this time, he’s upscaled footage of Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1922, with plenty of crowds and even a few shots of its famous canals. To accomplish this, neural networks boosted the footage to 60 frames per second, upscaled video to 4K, improved video sharpness, stabilized everything, and then last, but not least, added some color. Read more for the video.
Denis Shiryaev is back at it again, and this time, he’s upscaled and colorized “A Trip Down Market Street” in San Francisco on April 14, 1906 using AI-powered neural networks. What you may not know is that this shoot happened four days before the tragic San Francisco earthquake and fire, which destroyed over 80% of the city of San Francisco. Read more for the video and additional information.
Alphabet’s DeepMind Technologies created a neural network that learns how to play video games in a fashion similar to that of humans. It’s also a Neural Turing machine, or a neural network capable of accessing an external memory like a conventional Turing machine, resulting in a computer that mimics the short-term memory of the human brain. Read more for a video show just some of the games it has mastered, including several Atari classics, like Breakout.
The Google research team is using artificial intelligence to teach robots how to move with the agility of real-life animals, like dogs. Accomplishing this feat involved reinforcement learning (RL), where the researchers began by sourcing reference motion clips recorded from an animal and using RL to get the robot to copy those motions. Read more for a video and additional information.
For those who don’t know, Sophia is a social humanoid robot, modeled after the ancient Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, that was developed by Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics. Cameras within Sophia’s eyes combined with computer algorithms enable her to see, follow faces, sustain eye contact, and recognize individuals. She’s capable of processing speech and have conversations using a natural language subsystem. Read more to see what she has to say on the future of AI.