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Technology

Robots can now understand what you are saying to follow commands

By Chris Stokel-Walker

6 November 2020

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

AI makes it easier to talk to robots

Getty Images

Telling a robot where to go without having to speak like a robot – that is, with so-called natural language commands – is now a lot easier, thanks to a new model based on how people actually speak when giving directions.

Currently, many robots use simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) to know where they are in a given landscape. They have to concurrently keep track of their location on a map, while constantly updating their knowledge of the environment.

“SLAM is powerful and is great,” says Jason Corso at the University of…

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