IBM to collaborate with MIT to develop AI-based vision systems

Audio-visual understanding the next frontier in the development of artificial intelligence

IBM Research is to collaborate with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop machine-vision systems.

The new IBM-MIT Laboratory for Brain-inspired Multimedia Machine Comprehension's (BM3C) will work on the development of cognitive computing systems that can emulate the human ability to comprehend visual and audio inputs.

BM3C will address technical challenges around both pattern recognition and prediction methods in the field of machine vision that are currently impossible for machines alone to accomplish. For example, online retailer Ocado has talked to Computing about the need for such systems in order to automate the packing of supermarket items for delivery so that potatoes are packed before tomatoes.

The BMC3 collaboration will bring together brain, cognitive, and computer science specialists to conduct research in the field of unsupervised machine understanding of audio-visual streams of data, using insights from next-generation models of the brain to inform advances in machine vision.

"In a world where humans and machines are working together in increasingly collaborative relationships, breakthroughs in the field of machine vision will potentially help us live healthier more productive lives," said Guru Banavar, chief scientist, cognitive computing and vice president at IBM Research.

He continued: "By bringing together brain researchers and computer scientists to solve this complex technical challenge, we will advance the state-of-the-art in AI with our collaborators at MIT."

BM3C will be led by Professor James DiCarlo, the head of the Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences (BCS) at MIT, supported by a team that will include graduate students from both the Brain & Cognitive Sciences department and the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab.

They will collaborate with IBM scientists and engineers, who will provide expertise from IBM's Watson machine learning platform.

The MIT collaboration is one of a number of partnerships that IBM has put together in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence. However, bringing genuine audio-visual cognisance to artificial intelligence would represent a key breakthrough.

In the UK, Ocado is looking to blend vision systems with robotics in order to further automate is already highly automated warehousing systems with the goal, eventually, of having them entirely automated.