Simulation

Both transformers and reinforcement learning models are notoriously data-hungry. They may be less so when they work together. Vincent Micheli and colleagues at the University of Geneva trained a transformer-based system to simulate Atari games using a small amount of gameplay.

Roboticists often train their machines in simulation, where the controller model can learn from millions of hours of experience. A new method trained robots in the real world in 20 minutes.

Autonomous robots trained to navigate in a simulation often struggle in the real world. New work helps bridge the gap in a counterintuitive way.

Reinforcement learning is powering a new generation of video game cheaters. Players of Rocket League, a video game that ranks among the world’s most popular esports, are getting trounced by cheaters who use AI models originally developed to train contestants.

Robots trained via reinforcement learning usually study videos of robots performing the task at hand. A new approach used videos of humans to pre-train robotic arms.

Engineers who design aircraft, aqueducts, and other objects that interact with air and water use numerical simulations to test potential shapes, but they rely on trial and error to improve their designs. A neural simulator can optimize the shape itself.

If you buy or sell stocks, it’s handy to test your strategy before you put real money at risk. Researchers devised a fresh approach to simulating market behavior.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida are working with a system called CoupCast to estimate the likelihood that an individual country will undergo a coup d’état.

Nothing is certain except death and taxes, the saying goes — but how to make taxes fair and beneficial remains an open question. New research aims to answer it.

A new machine learning method aims to improve a machine’s ability to determine and locate points of interest.

Playing a team sport involves a fluid blend of individual and group skills. Researchers integrated both types of action into realistic humanoid agents that play football (known as soccer in the U.S.).

Startups are predicting how climate change will affect global commerce. Companies that specialize in climate analytics are training neural networks to help businesses manage risks posed by a warming globe,

The previous state-of-the-art model for playing vintage Atari games took advantage of a number of advances in reinforcement learning (RL). The new champion is a basic RL architecture plus a trick borrowed from image generation.

Neural nets could speed up development of new materials.What’s new: A deep learning system from Sandia National Laboratories dramatically accelerated simulations that help scientists understand how changes to the design or fabrication of a material change its properties.

World models, which learn a compressed representation of a dynamic environment like, say, a video game, have delivered top results in reinforcement learning. A new method makes them much smaller.