From futurism.com:

Researchers have started developing artificial intelligence with imagination – AI that can reason through decisions and make plans for the future, without being bound by human instructions.

Another way to put it would be imagining the consequences of actions before taking them, something we take for granted but which is much harder for robots to do.

The team working at Google-owned lab DeepMind says this ability is going to be crucial in developing AI algorithms for the future, allowing systems to better adapt to changing conditions that they haven’t been specifically programmed for. Insert your usual fears of a robot uprising here.

“When placing a glass on the edge of a table, for example, we will likely pause to consider how stable it is and whether it might fall,” explain the researchers in a blog post. “On the basis of that imagined consequence we might readjust the glass to prevent it from falling and breaking.”

“If our algorithms are to develop equally sophisticated behaviours, they too must have the capability to ‘imagine’ and reason about the future. Beyond that they must be able to construct a plan using this knowledge.”

Image Credit:   Getty

 

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