Innovative AI system, bringing the robot closer to humans

Open Al has developed an artificial intelligence system capable of controlling a robotic arm. The system is called Dactyl. Its main difference from analogs lies in the unusually high level at which the system is able to perform manipulations. Until now, none of the existing AI technologies are able to repeat this.

The movement of the human hand seeks to recreate in a robotic copy no generation of engineers. The functionality that seems ordinary and elementary to us is practically impossible for machines. None of the robots are able to handle objects with the same ease with which humans do it. Specialists from Open have made significant progress on this issue.

In order to train Dactyl in the necessary movements, engineers used a simulation environment. The digital analogue of the hand was placed in conditions functioning on the principle of randomization.At the same time, the initially specified parameters (for example, the size of the cube that needed to be grabbed, or the presence of gravity) changed over time, and absolutely randomly. Thus, the device learned to adapt to the environment, as close as possible to the natural reactions of the human hand.

After 50 hours of continuous workouts, the robotic arm was able to learn how to turn the cube with the desired picture from above for a little less than 1.5 minutes. This is a big progress. In this case, the machine did not drop the cube in any of the attempts.

Thanks to Dactyl, it became possible to develop a universal technology that allows teaching AI to perform several operations at once. This will help in the future to speed up the process of introducing artificial intelligence into real life by saving time on re-learning systems while expanding their potential functionality.