By Sam Boughedda
Investing.com — Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) announced a new long-term artificial intelligence project that aims to learn and interact with the world like we do, from a first-person perspective.
The project, named Ego4D, will work on a next-generation AI that will learn from videos that show the world from the center of the action, rather than the typical way of learning via photos and videos captured in third-person. That capability is needed to build AI assistants and train robots to help humans in the real world.
"AI that understands the world from this point of view could unlock a new era of immersive experiences, as devices like augmented reality (AR) glasses and virtual reality (VR) headsets become as useful in everyday life as smartphones," Facebook said.
The project involves a consortium of 13 universities and labs in nine countries, who have collected over 2,200 hours of first-person video, featuring 700 participants in the real world. The dataset available is 20 times greater than any other in terms of footage time.
The social media giant said it is establishing 5 benchmarks researchers can use to develop AI assistants, including:
- Episodic memory (the capacity to understand what happened and when. For example, remembering where an object was left)
- Forecasting (the ability to forecast someone's likely next move)
- Hand and object manipulation
- Audio-visual diarization (remembering who said what and when)
- Social interaction
Facebook shares rose 1.1% on Thursday.