NVIDIA has created a new research department, GEAR (Generalist Embodied Agent Research), which will focus on creating universal embodied AI agents in the physical (robotics) and virtual (games and any simulations) worlds.
The founders of GEAR are Jim Fan and Yuke Zhu. Both have previously collaborated on other projects.
“We believe in a future where every car can drive autonomously, and the use of robots and simulated agents will become as ubiquitous as the use of the iPhone,” Jim Fan, the head of the new research department, conceptually described the goals of the new research department.
He added that one of the goals of the research department will be “to create an AI agent that can learn to act skillfully in both the virtual and real worlds.” In essence, we are talking about the development of so-called strong AI (Artificial General Intelligence – AGI) or general general purpose AI, that is, a system capable of solving problems on a par with a person. According to Fan, 2024 will be the year of robotics development, the development of gaming AI and the year of simulation.
On the GEAR home page of the NVIDIA website, four main points are highlighted that describe the research program. The team will begin its work with the development of multimodal models of basic AI, general-purpose robots, basic virtual AI agents, and will also engage in data modeling.
The research team's website also lists four previous projects in which Jim Fan and Yuke Zu were involved. Two of them concern the development of a project of specialized and proactive AI agents that were built into the popular game Minecraft. Another project concerns an optimized reinforcement learning technique for robots, aiming to improve “agility to superhuman levels.” In addition, specialists were developing a system for multimodal queries to set tasks for robots, as well as an evaluation system for such actions.
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