Science Digest Chalk Talk: "Robots that Develop, Robots that Evolve"

Fabien Benureau, Postdoctoral Scholar (Tani Unit)

Creating adult robots, the same way we create adult cars, ready to be used out of the factory, is hard. Try to jam as many motion algorithms, pattern detection abilities, and encyclopedias into a robot’s head, and you’ll find that it still is woefully unprepared for the complexity and challenges of the real world. Why not, then, create robot children, that learn by themselves and from others, that are curious and creative, and even undergo gradual morphological growth, like us? The aim is not only to create better robots, but also to use robots as experimental platforms to study the mechanisms of our development. Come join me as I detail this idea and my current research directions in the Tani Unit.