The company announced a real-world sound simulator that will let researchers train AI systems in virtual three-dimensional spaces with sounds that mimic those that occur indoors, opening up the possibility that an AI assistant may one day help you track down a smartphone ringing in a distant room.
Facebook also unveiled an indoor mapping tool meant to help AI systems better understand and recall details about indoor spaces, such as how many chairs are in a dining room or whether a cup is on a counter.
This isn’t something you can do with technology as it is today. Smart speakers generally can’t “see” the world around them, and computers are not nearly as good as humans at finding their way around indoor spaces.
Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s chief technology officer, hopes this work, though early stage, could eventually power products like a pair of smart glasses to help you remember everything from where you left your keys to whether you already added vanilla to a bowl of cookie dough. In short, he wants to perfect AI that can perfect your own memory.
“If you can build these systems, they can help you remember the important parts of your life,” Schroepfer told CNN Business in an interview about the company’s vision for the future of AI.
But Schroepfer’s goal could depend on the company convincing people to trust Facebook to develop technology that may become deeply embedded in their personal lives — no small feat after years of privacy controversies and concerns about how much personal information the social network already has from its users.
“At the end of the day, our hope is that these AR glasses are sort of giving people superpowers,” Schroepfer said.
But perhaps smart glasses that can help you track down your wallet would be a bit more compelling than glasses that can simply take a picture of it.
Over time, this kind of AI research could be used for robotic assistants, which are still in the early stages of understanding and navigating indoor spaces.