Teaching chores to an artificial agent

Activity simulator could eventually teach robots tasks like making coffee or setting the table.

Adam Conner-Simons | Rachel Gordon | CSAIL  May 30, 2018

     For many people, household chores are a dreaded, inescapable part of life that we often put off or do with little care. But what if a robot assistant could help lighten the load?

     Recently, computer scientists have been working on teaching machines to do a wider range of tasks around the house. In a new paper spearheaded by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the University of Toronto, researchers demonstrate “VirtualHome,” a system that can simulate detailed household tasks and then have artificial “agents” execute them, opening up the possibility of one day teaching robots to do such tasks.

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