The company announced a real-world sound simulator that allows researchers to train AI systems in virtual three-dimensional spaces with sounds that mimic indoor lips, opening up the possibility that an AI assistant could one day help you get a smartphone on to detect a distant room.
Facebook also unveiled an interior design kit designed to help AI systems better understand and remember details about indoor spaces, such as how many chairs are in a dining room or when a bag sits on a counter.
This is not something you can do with technology as it is today. Smart speakers can not “see” the world around them at all, and computers are not nearly as good as humans at finding their way into indoor spaces.
Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s chief technology officer, hopes that this work, although early stage, could eventually send products like a pair of smart glasses to remind you everything from where you left your keys to or you already added vanilla to a bowl of cookie cloth. In short, he wants to perfect AI that can perfect your own memory.
“If you can build these systems, they can help you remember the important parts of your life,” Schroepfer told CNN Business in an interview about the company’s vision for the future of AI.
But Schroepfer’s goal could depend on the company persuading people to trust Facebook to develop technology that could be deeply embedded in their personal lives – no small feat after years of controversy over privacy and concerns about how much personal information the social network already has from its users.
“At the end of the day, our hope is that these AR glasses will give the types of superpowers,” Schroepfer said.
But often smart glasses that can help you locate your wallet can be a little more compelling than glasses that can just take a picture of it.
Over time, this kind of AI research could be used for robot assistants, who are still in the early stages of understanding and navigating interior spaces.
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