7,220 research outputs found
Intrinsic Motivation and Mental Replay enable Efficient Online Adaptation in Stochastic Recurrent Networks
Autonomous robots need to interact with unknown, unstructured and changing
environments, constantly facing novel challenges. Therefore, continuous online
adaptation for lifelong-learning and the need of sample-efficient mechanisms to
adapt to changes in the environment, the constraints, the tasks, or the robot
itself are crucial. In this work, we propose a novel framework for
probabilistic online motion planning with online adaptation based on a
bio-inspired stochastic recurrent neural network. By using learning signals
which mimic the intrinsic motivation signalcognitive dissonance in addition
with a mental replay strategy to intensify experiences, the stochastic
recurrent network can learn from few physical interactions and adapts to novel
environments in seconds. We evaluate our online planning and adaptation
framework on an anthropomorphic KUKA LWR arm. The rapid online adaptation is
shown by learning unknown workspace constraints sample-efficiently from few
physical interactions while following given way points.Comment: accepted in Neural Network
Born to learn: The inspiration, progress, and future of evolved plastic artificial neural networks
Biological plastic neural networks are systems of extraordinary computational
capabilities shaped by evolution, development, and lifetime learning. The
interplay of these elements leads to the emergence of adaptive behavior and
intelligence. Inspired by such intricate natural phenomena, Evolved Plastic
Artificial Neural Networks (EPANNs) use simulated evolution in-silico to breed
plastic neural networks with a large variety of dynamics, architectures, and
plasticity rules: these artificial systems are composed of inputs, outputs, and
plastic components that change in response to experiences in an environment.
These systems may autonomously discover novel adaptive algorithms, and lead to
hypotheses on the emergence of biological adaptation. EPANNs have seen
considerable progress over the last two decades. Current scientific and
technological advances in artificial neural networks are now setting the
conditions for radically new approaches and results. In particular, the
limitations of hand-designed networks could be overcome by more flexible and
innovative solutions. This paper brings together a variety of inspiring ideas
that define the field of EPANNs. The main methods and results are reviewed.
Finally, new opportunities and developments are presented
Intrinsic Motivation Systems for Autonomous Mental Development
Exploratory activities seem to be intrinsically rewarding
for children and crucial for their cognitive development.
Can a machine be endowed with such an intrinsic motivation
system? This is the question we study in this paper, presenting a number of computational systems that try to capture this drive towards novel or curious situations. After discussing related research coming from developmental psychology, neuroscience, developmental robotics, and active learning, this paper presents the mechanism of Intelligent Adaptive Curiosity, an intrinsic motivation system which pushes a robot towards situations in which it maximizes its learning progress. This drive makes the robot focus on situations which are neither too predictable nor too unpredictable, thus permitting autonomous mental development.The complexity of the robot’s activities autonomously increases and complex developmental sequences self-organize without being constructed in a supervised manner. Two experiments are presented illustrating the stage-like organization emerging with this mechanism. In one of them, a physical robot is placed on a baby play mat with objects that it can learn to manipulate. Experimental results show that the robot first spends time in situations
which are easy to learn, then shifts its attention progressively to situations of increasing difficulty, avoiding situations in which nothing can be learned. Finally, these various results are discussed in relation to more complex forms of behavioral organization and data coming from developmental psychology.
Key words: Active learning, autonomy, behavior, complexity,
curiosity, development, developmental trajectory, epigenetic
robotics, intrinsic motivation, learning, reinforcement learning,
values
Embodied Artificial Intelligence through Distributed Adaptive Control: An Integrated Framework
In this paper, we argue that the future of Artificial Intelligence research
resides in two keywords: integration and embodiment. We support this claim by
analyzing the recent advances of the field. Regarding integration, we note that
the most impactful recent contributions have been made possible through the
integration of recent Machine Learning methods (based in particular on Deep
Learning and Recurrent Neural Networks) with more traditional ones (e.g.
Monte-Carlo tree search, goal babbling exploration or addressable memory
systems). Regarding embodiment, we note that the traditional benchmark tasks
(e.g. visual classification or board games) are becoming obsolete as
state-of-the-art learning algorithms approach or even surpass human performance
in most of them, having recently encouraged the development of first-person 3D
game platforms embedding realistic physics. Building upon this analysis, we
first propose an embodied cognitive architecture integrating heterogenous
sub-fields of Artificial Intelligence into a unified framework. We demonstrate
the utility of our approach by showing how major contributions of the field can
be expressed within the proposed framework. We then claim that benchmarking
environments need to reproduce ecologically-valid conditions for bootstrapping
the acquisition of increasingly complex cognitive skills through the concept of
a cognitive arms race between embodied agents.Comment: Updated version of the paper accepted to the ICDL-Epirob 2017
conference (Lisbon, Portugal
Learning Visual Locomotion with Cross-Modal Supervision
In this work, we show how to learn a visual walking policy that only uses a
monocular RGB camera and proprioception. Since simulating RGB is hard, we
necessarily have to learn vision in the real world. We start with a blind
walking policy trained in simulation. This policy can traverse some terrains in
the real world but often struggles since it lacks knowledge of the upcoming
geometry. This can be resolved with the use of vision. We train a visual module
in the real world to predict the upcoming terrain with our proposed algorithm
Cross-Modal Supervision (CMS). CMS uses time-shifted proprioception to
supervise vision and allows the policy to continually improve with more
real-world experience. We evaluate our vision-based walking policy over a
diverse set of terrains including stairs (up to 19cm high), slippery slopes
(inclination of 35 degrees), curbs and tall steps (up to 20cm), and complex
discrete terrains. We achieve this performance with less than 30 minutes of
real-world data. Finally, we show that our policy can adapt to shifts in the
visual field with a limited amount of real-world experience. Video results and
code at https://antonilo.github.io/vision_locomotion/.Comment: Learning to walk from pixels in the real world by using
proprioception as supervision. Project page for videos and code:
https://antonilo.github.io/vision_locomotion
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