IBM and the Massachusetts Institute Technology (MIT) are teaming up to advance the development of machine vision using insights from the brain and cognitive research.
The multi-year partnership will see IBM Research collaborate with MIT’s Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences (BCS) to advance frontiers of artificial intelligence in real-world audio-visual comprehension technologies.
The organisations are building a research laboratory for brain-inspired multimedia machine comprehension (BM3C) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Together they plan to develop cognitive computing systems that mimic the human ability to understand and integrate input from several sources for use in various computer applications in industries like healthcare, education, and entertainment.
MIT researchers will work with IBM scientists and engineers, who will offer technology expertise and advances from the IBM Watson platform.
BCS head James DiCarlo will lead the BM3C, which seeks to find solutions to several technical challenges around pattern recognition and prediction in machine vision that are presently impossible tasks for machines to complete alone.
The collaboration will bring together leading brain, cognitive, and computer scientists to undertake 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.
IBM said such advances could change lives, from helping clinicians enhance elderly and disabled care to allowing organisations maintain and repair complex machinery.
IBM Research chief scientist, cognitive computing and VP Guru Banavar said: “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.
“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.”
IBM also offers courses on several cognitive computing topics to more than 250 universities, allowing students to access Watson technology through the cloud.
