Why is Facebook keen on robots? It's just the future of AI

Facebook announced several new hires of top academics in the field of artificial intelligence Tuesday, among them a roboticist known for her work at Disney making animated figures move in more human-like ways.

The hires raise a big question — why is Facebook interested in robots, anyway?

It's not as though the social media giant is suddenly interested in developing mechanical friends, although it does use robotic arms in some of its data centers. The answer is even more central to the problem of how AI systems work today.

Today, most successful AI systems have to be exposed to millions of data points labeled by humans — like, say, photos of cats — before they can learn to recognize patterns that people take for granted. Similarly, game-playing bots like Google's computerized Go master AlphaGo Zero require tens of thousands of trials to learn the best moves from their failures.

Creating systems that require less data and have more common sense is a key goal for making AI smarter in the future.

This photo provided by Facebook shows Jessica Hodgins. Facebook is announcing several academic hires in artificial intelligence, including Carnegie Mellon researcher Jessica Hodgins, who's known for her work making animated figures move in more human-like ways. Yann LeCun, Facebook's chief AI scientist, says some of the best ideas for getting AI systems to learn faster and with less data are coming from the field of robotics. (Facebook via AP)

"Clearly we're missing something in terms of how humans can learn so fast," Yann LeCun, Facebook's chief AI scientist, said in a call with reporters last week. "So far the best ideas have come out of robotics."

Among the people Facebook is hiring are Jessica Hodgins , the former Disney researcher; and Abhinav Gupta, her colleague at Carnegie Mellon University who is known for using robot arms to learn how to grasp things.

Pieter Abbeel, a roboticist at University of California, Berkeley and co-founder of the robot-training company Covariant.ai, says the robotics field has benefits and constraints that push progress in AI. For one, the real world is naturally complex, so robotic AI systems have to deal with unexpected, rare events. And real-world constraints like a lack of time and the cost of keeping machinery moving push researchers to solve difficult problems.

"Robotics forces you into many reality checks," Abbeel said. "How good are these algorithms, really?"

There are other more abstract applications of learnings from robotics, says Berkeley AI professor Ken Goldberg. Just like teaching a robot to escape from a computerized maze, other robots change their behavior depending on whether actions they took got them closer to a goal. Such systems could even be adapted to serve ads, he said — which just happens to be the mainstay of Facebook's business.

"It's not a static decision, it's a dynamic one," Goldberg said.

This photo provided by Facebook shows Yann LeCun. Facebook is announcing several academic hires in artificial intelligence, including Carnegie Mellon researcher Jessica Hodgins, who's known for her work making animated figures move in more human-like ways. Yann LeCun, Facebook's chief AI scientist, says some of the best ideas for getting AI systems to learn faster and with less data are coming from the field of robotics. (Facebook via AP)

In an interview, Hodgins expressed an interest in a wide range of robotics research, everything from building a "compelling humanoid robot" to creating a mechanical servant to "load and unload my dishwasher."

While she acknowledged the need to imbue robots with more common sense and have them learn with fewer examples, she also said her work in animation could lead to a new form of sharing — one in which AI-powered tools could help one show off a work of pottery in 3-D, for example.

"One thing I hope we'll be able to do is to explore AI support for creativity," she said.

For Facebook, planting a flag in the hot field also allows it to be competitive for AI talent emerging from universities, Facebook's LeCun said.

Bart Selman, a Cornell computer science professor AI expert, said it's a good idea for Facebook to broaden its reach in AI and take on projects that might not be directly related to the company's business — something that's a little more "exciting" — the way Google did with self-driving cars, for example.

This attracts not just attention, but students, too. The broader the research agenda, the better the labs become, he said.

HARTFORD (AP) — The Connecticut Senate pressed ahead Wednesday with one of the first major legislative proposals in the U.S. to rein in bias in artificial intelligence decision-making and protect people from harm, including manufactured videos or deepfakes.

The vote was held despite concerns the bill might stifle innovation, become a burden for small businesses and make the state an outlier.

The bill passed 24-12 after a lengthy debate. It is the result of two years of task force meetings in Connecticut and a year's worth of collaboration among a bipartisan group of legislators from other states who are trying to prevent a patchwork of laws across the country because Congress has yet to act.

“I think that this is a very important bill for the state of Connecticut. It’s very important I think also for the country as a first step to get a bill like this,” said Democratic Sen. James Maroney, the key author of the bill. “Even if it were not to come and get passed into law this year, we worked together as states.”

Lawmakers from Connecticut, Colorado, Texas, Alaska, Georgia and Virginia who have been working together on the issue have found themselves in the middle of a national debate between civil rights-oriented groups and the industry over the core components of the legislation. Several of the legislators, including Maroney, participated in a news conference last week to emphasize the need for legislation and highlight how they have worked with industry, academia and advocates to create proposed regulations for safe and trustworthy AI.

But Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding said he felt like Connecticut senators were being rushed to vote on the most complicated piece of legislation of the session, which is scheduled to adjourn May 8. The Republican said he feared the bill was “full of unintended consequences” that could prove detrimental to businesses and residents in the state.

“I think our constituents are owed more thought, more consideration to this before we push that button and say this is now going to become law," he said.

Besides pushback from Republican legislators, some key Democrats in Connecticut, including Gov. Ned Lamont, have voiced concern the bill may negatively impact an emerging industry. Lamont, a former cable TV entrepreneur, “remains concerned that this is a fast-moving space, and that we need to make sure we do this right and don’t stymie innovation,” his spokesperson Julia Bergman said in a statement.

Among other things, the bill includes protections for consumers, tenants and employees by attempting to target risks of AI discrimination based on race, age, religion, disability and other protected classes. Besides making it a crime to spread so-called deepfake pornography and deceptive AI-generated media in political campaigns, the bill requires digital watermarks on AI-generated images for transparency.

Additionally, certain AI users will be required to develop policies and programs to eliminate risks of AI discrimination.

The legislation also creates a new online AI Academy where Connecticut residents can take classes in AI and ensures AI training is part of state workforce development initiatives and other state training programs. There are some concerns the bill doesn't go far enough, with calls by advocates to restore a requirement that companies must disclose more information to consumers before they can use AI to make decisions about them.

The bill now awaits action in the House of Representatives.

FILE - OpenAI's ChatGPT app is displayed on an iPhone in New York, May 18, 2023. The Connecticut Senate pressed ahead Wednesday, April 24, 2024 with one of the first major legislative proposals in the U.S. to reign in bias in AI decision making and protect people from harm, including manufactured videos or deepfakes. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

Democratic state Sen. James Maroney of Connecticut explains a far-reaching bill that attempts to regulate artificial intelligence during a debate in the state Senate in Hartford, Conn. on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. The bill marks one of the first major legislative proposals in the country to reign in bias in AI decision-making and protect people from harm. (AP Photo/Susan Haigh)