Robohub.org
 

Andrea Thomaz: Robots Learning from Human Teachers | CMU RI Seminar


by
30 March 2019



share this:

Link to video on YouTube

Abstract: “In this talk I will cover some of the recent work out of the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab at UT Austin (http://sim.ece.utexas.edu/research.html). The vision of our research is to enable robots to function in dynamic human environments by allowing them to flexibly adapt their skill set via learning interactions with end-users. We explore the ways in which Machine Learning agents can exploit principles of human social learning, and breakdown assumptions about what “data” will be like, when the source of that data is an average human teacher. I will cover our work on interactive reinforcement learning algorithms that model the attention of the teacher; coupling learning from demonstration with simulation to make the best use of valuable interactions with people; and algorithms for re-using previously learned tasks in new contexts with the help of a teacher’s hints and corrections. In the latter part of the talk, I will put on my other hat, as co-founder and CEO of Diligent Robotics (http://diligentrobots.com/about) to tell you about how we are translating our research on adapting to human environments into a commercial product. Our first product, Moxi, is a robot assistant that works alongside and supports clinical care teams in hospitals. Moxi was launched into beta trials late last year, and has been deployed in four hospitals across Texas to date.”




John Payne

            AUAI is supported by:



Subscribe to Robohub newsletter on substack



Related posts :

#RoboCup2026 social media round-up

  08 Jul 2026
Find out what the teams got up to at this year's RoboCup extravaganza in Incheon.

#RoboCup2026 – humanoid league knockout stages

  06 Jul 2026
Find out who won the small, middle and large divisions in Incheon.

#RoboCup2026 – humanoid league day 2

  03 Jul 2026
Find out the latest from day two of the competition.

Reflections from ICRA 2026

  02 Jul 2026
From dancing robots to moral machines: our Assistant Editor reflects on ICRA 2026.

#RoboCup2026 – humanoid league day 1

  02 Jul 2026
In the first of our round-ups from the humanoid league we introduce the competition, and report some preliminary results.

What’s coming up at #RoboCup2026?

  29 Jun 2026
Find out what's in store at this year's international competition.

Robot Talk Episode 162 – The robot doctor will see you now

  26 Jun 2026
In this special live recording at the Great Exhibition Road Festival in London, Claire chatted to George Mylonas (Imperial College London), Antonia Tzemanaki (University of Bristol) and Tom Vercauteren (King’s College London) about robotics and AI in medicine and healthcare.

AI brings object-level vision prosthetics closer to reality

  23 Jun 2026
Researchers are developing AI models that could one day enable vision prosthetics able to restore meaningful, object-level sight for the blind.



AUAI is supported by:







Subscribe to Robohub newsletter on substack




 















©2026.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence