Geoffrey Hinton, capsule networks and Sara Sabour, holding a two-piece pyramid puzzle, are researching a system that could let computers see more like humans at a Google laboratory in Toronto
Geoffrey Hinton and Sara Sabour, holding a two-piece pyramid puzzle, are researching a system that could let computers see more like humans at a Google laboratory in Toronto.
But as Mr. Hinton himself points out, his idea has had its limits. If a neural network is trained on images that show a coffee cup only from a side, for example, it is unlikely to recognize a coffee cup turned upside down.
Now Mr. Hinton and Sara Sabour, a young Google researcher, are exploring an alternative mathematical technique that he calls a capsule network. The idea is to build a system that sees more like a human. If a neural network sees the world in two dimensions, a capsule network can see it in three.
Mr. Hinton, a 69-year-old British expatriate, opened Google's artificial intelligence lab in Toronto this year. The new lab is emblematic of what some believe to be the future of cutting-edge tech research: Much of it is expected to happen outside the United States in Europe, China and longtime A.I. research centers, like Toronto, that are more welcoming to immigrant researchers.