Mona Lalwani writes for Engadget about a new partnership between Sony and AI startup Cogitai to “build intelligent systems that will learn from their own experiences in the world.” Dr. Satinder Singh, co-founder of Cogitai which Sony has now invested in:

 We have a shared vision for where AI needs to go. The next wave will be ‘continual learning.’ It’s the idea that machine intelligence will continually grow as it interacts with the world. 

So what is continual learning?

Continual learning isn’t just about creating smart devices that sense your presence, or virtual assistants that understand you better. It’s a technique that is expected to give machines a sort of self-evolving capability. 

According to Dr. Singh:

It builds on everything that has come before. There’s supervised deep learning to distinguish objects and then there’s reinforcement learning because AI needs to act in the world and learn from consequences. But the new part is the ability to learn and build on those previous things.

Sony is of course no stranger to robotics.

In fact, it was a frontrunner in 1999 with AIBO, one of the most successful consumer robotic dogs. The company later went on to set up a Sony Intelligence Laboratory and Sony Computer Science Laboratories to focus on AI-research and development.

As Sony’s fortunes continue to turn around, we’re seeing the company invest more in future technology like AI and robotics which will clearly be part of our future in some shape and form. Other projects that in the long run could bare fruit include the table-top projector and building a centralized platform for educational assessment and testing scores that’s powered by the Blockchain, the underpinnings of Bitcoin.

The truth is that the mobile frontier as we know it (i.e. smartphones and tablets) no longer has room to break out from as it continues to mature. Sony’s mobile strategy has been too little too late as the company still hasn’t figured out exactly how to create a meaningful business out of that division. However, with the next frontiers still wide open, Sony’s investments allow for the company to better compete in the emerging spaces as they materialize.

Discuss:

Where do you see this going for Sony?