2020 BRN Discussion, page-18138

From Sony.

The important thing is to establish an AI development environmentKitano: Establishing a development environment is essential for the development and commercialization of higher-performance AI. We are therefore proceeding with the development of platforms for AI incorporating sensors, processors and software. We believe that new possibilities will be created by linking Sony's diverse range of sensors with AI on platforms. We predict that they will be used both in-house and outside, and in a wide range of applications, running the gamut from consumer devices and products to industrial uses.Nakagawa: We are platforming software at the same time as hardware. We are defining and realizing interfaces that allow us to incorporate Sony sensors, and supplying them together with hardware. As a result, users are able to focus their complete attention on AI development. Rather than simply supplying developers of sensor-based recognition processing or applications with sensor units or chip units, our goal is to provide them with systems incorporating both hardware and software that can be used immediately in AI development.Toward edge AI that comes close to human perception via synchronization of multiple sensorsKitano: Sony not only produces image sensors that capture high-resolution images, but also supplies a full range of other sensors offering top-level performance and functions, including depth image sensors and high-speed vision sensors. Using any of these sensors in isolation, we would be able to boost AI performance, but by synchronizing multiple sensors on a platform, we believe that we can realize an even greater performance, coming close to the level of human performance. Just as humans understand an instant based on various sensory impressions, this means sensing a variety of data in the same instant and then instantaneously processing those data in a location close to the sensors. We believe that processing the data immediately behind the sensor in order to reduce latency and data degradation will increase recognition performance and generate new possibilities.Nakagawa: For example, in the case of a robot, feedback to an actuator is required, and it is important to determine how to reduce latency. Development engineers and creators have a high degree of interest in completing recognition processing at the edge rather than in the cloud. Sensing AI platforms will provide an answer to the question of how to execute AI tasks and recognition processing (which has been done in the cloud up to the present) at the edge, increasing the ease of utilization.Expanding the possibilities of AI beyond what we can imagineNakagawa: What we are attempting to do is to create something that will become what could be called the eyes and the brain of a robot. Using AI, we will advance the intelligence of robots while sensing data that humans cannot perceive. I want people to come up with ideas that have never been thought of before based on the platforms that we provide, and use them as the basis of new services.Kitano: I believe that in the future, where the increasing advancement of AI performance is taking us, what waits is a world beyond human imagination, a world that is like something from a science fiction movie. Our aim is to be at the forefront when we get there.