Robot Displays a Glimmer of Empathy to a Partner Robot

Like a longtime couple who can predict each other’s every move, a Columbia Engineering robot has learned to predict its partner robot’s future actions and goals based on just a few initial video frames. The study, conducted at Columbia Engineering’s Creative Machines Lab led by Mechanical Engineering Professor Hod Lipson, is part of a broader effort to endow robots with the ability to understand and anticipate the goals of other robots, purely from visual observations.