In an important advance that takes us one step closer to the inevitable robopocalypse, MIT researchers have developed a system that teaches robots how to acquire new skills—and then teach those skills to different types of robots.
The system is called C-LEARN, and it was developed by researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Using C-LEARN, people who have no experience with computer programming can teach a robot how to perform a task—like dropping a flask into a bucket, or pulling a rod from a container—by providing it with some basic rules about the task, and allowing the robot to view a single demonstration of the task being completed.
Incredibly, a robot can then transfer this newly-acquired knowledge to another robot, even if the robot learning is physically different than the robot teaching. Eventually, the C-LEARN system could allow factories to utilize a host of different robot types, and not have to worry about programming each and every one of them individually. It could also help robots to quickly learn and teach new tasks in high pressure situations, such as when they’re busy exterminating the entire human species, or more practically, when they’re defusing bombs.
More:
http://gizmodo.com/robots-have-started-teaching-other-robots-new-skills-1795097121
