Helping machines perceive some laws of physics

4 years ago
Anonymous $4bURcB5AtU

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191202190414.htm

Now MIT researchers have designed a model that demonstrates an understanding of some basic "intuitive physics" about how objects should behave. The model could be used to help build smarter artificial intelligence and, in turn, provide information to help scientists understand infant cognition.

The model, called ADEPT, observes objects moving around a scene and makes predictions about how the objects should behave, based on their underlying physics. While tracking the objects, the model outputs a signal at each video frame that correlates to a level of "surprise" -- the bigger the signal, the greater the surprise. If an object ever dramatically mismatches the model's predictions -- by, say, vanishing or teleporting across a scene -- its surprise levels will spike.