Berkeley’s renowned programs in artificial intelligence and robotics involve scores of professors in the College of Engineering. Not one of them is typical — as here, where three quite different researchers discuss technologies that are bringing machines and humans into closer relationships. Rikky Muller works at the boundary where sensitive machines and human brains make physical contact. Ken Goldberg trains robots to work independently and act competently in the world around them. Anca Dragan coaches robots and humans to understand one another’s intentions. Their aim is to create machines with the intelligence to better serve and work with human beings.
Machines that listen
Imagine, floating on the surface of your brain, there’s a fleck of polymer the diameter of a pencil eraser and as thin as Saran Wrap; it carries an array of microelectrodes that listen to signals from your motor cortex. The neurons in that region, at the top of your head, fire when you walk around, pick up a glass of water, type a text message or move in other ways.
Read more from Berkeley Engineering | May 1, 2016: https://engineering.berkeley.edu/news/2016/05/life-with-machine-robot-relationships-get-real/