AI agents imitate engineers to construct effective new designs using visual cues like humans do
Trained AI agents can adopt human design strategies to solve problems, according to findings published in the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design.
Big design problems require creative and exploratory decision making, a skill in which humans excel. When engineers use artificial intelligence (AI), they have traditionally applied it to a problem within a defined set of rules rather than having it generally follow human strategies to create something new. This novel research considers an AI framework that learns human design strategies through observation of human data to generate new designs without explicit goal information, bias, or guidance.
The study was co-authored by Jonathan Cagan, professor of mechanical engineering and interim dean of Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering, Ayush Raina, a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon, and Chris McComb, an assistant professor of engineering design at the Pennsylvania State University.
“The AI is not just mimicking or regurgitating solutions that already exist,” said Cagan. “It’s learning how people solve a specific type of problem and creating new design solutions from scratch.” How good can AI be? “The answer is quite good.”
The study focuses on truss problems because they represent complex engineering design challenges. Commonly seen in bridges, a truss is an assembly of rods forming a complete structure. The AI agents were trained to observe the progression in design modification sequences that had been followed in creating a truss based on the same visual information that engineers use–pixels on a screen–but without further context. When it was the agents’ turn to design, they imagined design progressions that were similar to those used by humans and then generated design moves to realize them. The researchers emphasized visualization in the process because vision is an integral part of how humans perceive the world and go about solving problems.
The framework was made up of multiple deep neural networks which worked together in a prediction-based situation. Using a neural network, the AI looked through a set of five sequential images and predicted the next design using the information it gathered from these images.
“We were trying to have the agents create designs similar to how humans do it, imitating the process they use: how they look at the design, how they take the next action, and then create a new design, step by step,” said Raina.
The researchers tested the AI agents on similar problems and found that on average, they performed better than humans. Yet, this success came without many of the advantages humans have available when they are solving problems. Unlike humans, the agents were not working with a specific goal (like making something lightweight) and did not receive feedback on how well they were doing. Instead, they only used the vision-based human strategy techniques they had been trained to use.
“It’s tempting to think that this AI will replace engineers, but that’s simply not true,” said McComb. “Instead, it can fundamentally change how engineers work. If we can offload boring, time-consuming tasks to an AI, like we did in the work, then we free engineers up to think big and solve problems creatively.”
Learn more: AI learns to design
The Latest on: AI agents
[google_news title=”” keyword=”AI agents” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
via Google News
The Latest on: AI agents
- OpenAI could debut a multimodal AI digital assistant soonon May 11, 2024 at 3:20 pm
OpenAI has been showing some of its customers a new multimodal AI model that can both talk to you and recognize objects, according to a new report from The Information. Citing unnamed sources who’ve ...
- Are AI agents the next step in the AI revolution?on May 10, 2024 at 3:37 pm
In the future, we will see AI transcend current limitations, morphing into what can be best described as ‘Fully human-capable AI Agents.
- Study shows AI conversational agents can help reduce interethnic prejudice during online interactionson May 10, 2024 at 10:36 am
Prejudice and fear have always been at the core of intergroup hostilities. While intergroup interaction is a prerequisite for initiating peace and stability at the junction of clashing interests, ...
- MultiOn Innovates With Virtual Agentson May 9, 2024 at 3:58 pm
"And how our agents work is: they can control your computer … they can control a browser, and they can interact on your behalf.
- Will Wright to discuss brain-based AI agents at GamesBeat Summit 2024on May 9, 2024 at 12:30 pm
Will Wright is joining us at GameBeat Summit 2024 in Los Angeles to talk about the potential of AI agents in games.
- Retell AI lets companies build 'voice agents' to answer phone callson May 9, 2024 at 6:30 am
Call centers are embracing automation. According to research firm TechSci Research, the global market for contact center AI could grow to nearly $3 billion in 2028, from $2.4 billion in 2022.
- Starknet to bring on AI agents that can carry out on-chain activityon May 9, 2024 at 3:30 am
Starknet is allowing Giza to put AI agents on its blockchain, which are slated to take over some on-chain tasks like optimizing yield.
- Bye-bye bots: Altera’s game-playing AI agents get backing from Eric Schmidton May 8, 2024 at 4:37 pm
Autonomous, AI-based players are coming to a gaming experience near you, and a new startup, Altera, is joining the fray to build this new guard of AI ...
- Forget about prompt engineering, Typeface Arc uses AI agent approach to power marketing campaignson May 8, 2024 at 2:04 pm
Typeface Arc aims to use an AI agent approach to enable organizations to generate and iterate complete marketing campaigns.
- Altera Closes $9M Seed Round to Build Digital Human Beings and Redefine AI Agentson May 8, 2024 at 7:18 am
After shutting their MIT lab, founders raise $11.1 million in first five months of company's inception ...
via Bing News