Perceptron- Robots that feel pain and AI that predicts soccer players’ movements

Machine learning and AI research, which is now a critical technology in almost every sector and corporation, is just too extensive for anyone to read it all. Perceptron (formerly Deep Science) is a column that seeks to gather and explain some of the most important recent discoveries and articles — particularly in, but not limited to, artificial intelligence — and demonstrate why they matter.    

A team of engineers from the University of Glasgow developed “artificial skin” that can learn to feel and react to simulated pain this week in AI. DeepMind researchers created a machine learning system that can anticipate where soccer players would run on a field, while researchers from Tsinghua University and The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) developed algorithms that can create lifelike images — and even films — of human models.

According to a news release, the Glasgow team’s artificial skin used a new type of processing system based on “synaptic transistors” that mimicked the brain’s neural networks. The transistors were created from zinc-oxide nanowires printed on the surface of flexible plastic and were linked to an electrical resistance sensor on the skin.