generalise its learning to transfer it to different environments and tracks the way humans can. Also, it cannot factor in risk, he says. “Humans are very cautious because they do not want to crash often, so naturally they don’t always fly as fast as they could,” he says. That makes human operators more robust. Faster, but not yet better To prepare for the race, Dr Scaramuzza’s team measured the champions’ reaction times, which averaged 0.25 seconds, which is quite slow. However, human pilots rely much more on anticipation than reaction, he says. “Humans are good at building world models to anticipate things,” he explains. “Give them an image of an environment and they can speculate what the environment will look like as they start navigating it. Machines cannot do that.” Giving AI a comparable ability to anticipate is an important area of research, he says, and the approach is analogous to the creation of large language models such as ChatGPT. “What we are trying to develop are visual models that would allow machines to make predictions from a sequence of images.” In developing AI-driven UAVs, Dr Scaramuzza is engaged with the ethical and humanitarian issues it raises, and consults on and runs seminars for the UN on disarmament and organisations such as Drones For Good and AI For Good. “I would like to educate society to use AI and robotics responsibly,” he says. “We researchers have a responsibility when we publish open source code to be sure it is not directly applicable to misuse.” He is also a keen promoter of the ‘no killer robot’ policy at UN level, wanting to make sure that in future AI doesn’t make the decision to use a lethal weapon, meaning that people remain in the decision loop. “At the moment there is no regulation, which means it’s problematic.” Dr Scaramuzza’s lab has also generated spin-offs, including Zurich Eye which became Meta Zurich and developed the Meta Quest VR headset, and the SUIND crop spraying and forest monitoring operation in India, where they found a huge market. “They are taking technology from our lab to the real world and doing big things for good,” he says. 23 Uncrewed Systems Technology | October/November 2023 Inspired by a keen interest in mathematics, science and philosophy at high school, the Liceo Scientifico Renato Donatelli in Terni, Dr Scaramuzza went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering at the University of Perugia. That led to a PhD in robotics and computer vision from ETH Zurich, and a postdoc in the subject from the University of Pennsylvania. He has also served as a Visiting Associate Professor at Stanford University, and is now Associate Professor of Robotics and Perception at the University of Zurich. As a counterpoint to his work as a scientist, he enjoys performing magic tricks for audiences ranging from children to colleagues. “I think the connection there is to do with the fact that robots move by themselves, and with magic you make people believe in telekinesis,” he says. “There was a trick called the zombie ball I used to do a lot for kids. The ball floats in the air, and for me, seeing a robot move by itself is like magic.” Dr Davide Scaramuzza In visual navigation, the UAV sees only salient points of interest, triangulated to produce a 3D representation of the environment, saving processing power
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