Artificial intelligence archive

New ‘deep learning’ technique enables robot mastery of skills via trial and error

May 22, 2015

UC Berkeley researchers have developed algorithms that enable robots to learn motor tasks through trial and error using a process that more closely approximates the way humans learn, marking a major milestone in the field of artificial intelligence.

New approach trains robots to match human dexterity and speed

May 22, 2015

Linking several powerful software techniques, as Berkeley engineers have done with BRETT (Berkeley Robot for the Elimination of Tedious Tasks), makes it possible for a robot to learn tasks rapidly with a relatively little training.

Robots are really bad at folding towels

May 20, 2015

Seven years ago, Berkeley researcher Pieter Abbeel set out on a quest: to teach a robot how to fold laundry. This proved to be a remarkably difficult task – and the difficulty of the task illuminates some key things about the limits of machines. See story and hear four-minute podcast.

How smart is today’s artificial intelligence?

May 20, 2015

How far away are we from making intelligent machines that actually have minds of their own? Berkeley researchers Stuart Russell and Pieter Abbeel weigh in on this nine-minute PBS News Hour segment, along with Elon Musk and Google’s Ray Kurzweil.

Throw this camera drone in the air and it flies itself

May 15, 2015

The Lily is a drone that doesn’t need a controller, or a pilot; it just follows you. It’s the first product from Lily Robotics, founded by a pair of recent UC Berkeley graduates including CTO Henry Bradlow (B.S.’13 EECS).

CITRIS launches “People and Robots” initiative

April 23, 2015

The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society has launched the CITRIS People and Robots Initiative, a multidisciplinary, multi-campus research program that builds on 40 years of robotics research, a network of alumni, and many active labs and projects.

The cyber-biophysical research frontier

April 16, 2015

Cyber-biophysical systems, our newest research field, integrates sensing, computational and communications networks with human biology.

Forget the Singularity, let’s talk Multiplicity

February 26, 2015

EECS and new media professor Ken Goldberg recaps his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he talked about artificial intelligence and took part in a debate on “Will Machines Make Better Decisions Than Humans?”

Students show off ‘autonomous vehicles’ at L.A. Drone Expo

December 16, 2014

Berkeley Engineering students joined civil engineering professor Raja Sengupta at the first-ever Drone Expo in Los Angeles on Saturday, demonstrating their “unmanned autonomous vehicles” to a crowd of hobbyists and enthusiasts.

The unknown start-up that built Google’s first self-driving car

November 20, 2014

The story behind Google’s innovative self-driving car and the revolutionary Street View camera technology that preceded begins with 510 Systems, a tiny Berkeley start-up launched by IEOR grad (and later Google engineer) Anthony Levandowski and fellow Berkeley Engineering student Bryon Majusiak.

AI researchers say Elon Musk’s fears ‘not completely crazy’

October 29, 2014

Commenting on high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk provocative statement that artificial intelligence research is a danger to humanity, EECS professor and robotics researcher Stuart Russell says that “If we don’t know how to control AI… it would be like making a hydrogen bomb. They would be much more dangerous than they are useful.”

The robot in the cloud

October 27, 2014

In a conversation with the New York Times’ Bits blog, Berkeley Engineering professor, roboticist and new media pioneer Ken Goldberg discusses what he thinks will be one of the great technology breakthroughs of our age: the fusing of robotics and cloud computing.

New research center aims to develop second generation of surgical robots

October 24, 2014

With funding from the National Science Foundation and two private donors, Berkeley Engineering scientists will establish a research center intended to help develop medical robots that can perform low-level and repetitive surgical tasks.

Scientists consider repurposing robots for Ebola

October 23, 2014

Robotics scientists, pondering the intriguing possibility of repurposing existing search-and-rescue robots to help contain the Ebola epidemic, are planning a nationwide series of brainstorming meetings, including one Nov. 7 at UC Berkeley.

Brainy, yes, but hardly handy

September 2, 2014

Robots won’t be able to take on many human roles until they acquire a delicate sense of touch, and that “takes time, and it’s more complicated,” says Ken Goldberg, a roboticist and IEOR professor at Berkeley Engineering. “Humans are really good at this, and they have millions of years of evolution.”