New robots predict their future by learning like babies

Prof. Sergey Levine and grad students Chelsea Finn and Frederik Ebert have developed a robotic learning technology called visual foresight that enables robots to imagine the future of their actions so they can figure out how to manipulate objects they have never encountered before. “This can enable intelligent planning of highly flexible skills in complex real-world situations,” Levine says.  In the future, this technology could help self-driving cars anticipate future events on the road and produce more intelligent robotic assistants in homes, but the initial prototype focuses on learning simple manual skills entirely from autonomous play–like children do.