ICLR 2023 – Emergence of Maps in the Memories of Blind Navigation Agents

In this episode we discuss Emergence of Maps in the Memories of Blind Navigation Agents
by Erik Wijmans, Manolis Savva, Irfan Essa, Stefan Lee, Ari S. Morcos, Dhruv Batra. The paper explores whether blind artificial intelligence agents can develop implicit maps of their environment. The study involves training these agents in navigation tasks and finding that they display intelligent behavior and utilize memory over long time periods. The representations created by the blind agents include maps and collision detection neurons, supporting the idea that mapping is a vital mechanism for navigation in both biological and artificial agents.