The Washington Post - 21.10.2019

A14 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, OCTOBER 21 , 2019

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BY PETER HOLLEY

Solving a Rubik’s Cube with

two hands is hard for most

people.

Solving a Rubik’s Cube with

one hand is even harder.

Harder still: Designing a lone

robot hand capable of solving a

Rubik’s Cube by itself. Such a

machine would require unprec-

edented dexterity and coordinat-

ed finger joint movements, as

well as the ability to learn a new

task over time and independent-

ly the way a human would.

Researchers at OpenAI — a

well-known San Francisco-based

research lab focused on develop-

ing benevolent artificial intelli-

gence — recently announced

they’d done just that, achieving a

new robotics benchmark in an

era of increasingly sophisticated

intelligent machines.

In a statement hailing their

work, researchers said the robot-

ic hand, which they’ve dubbed

Dactyl, moves robots one step

closer to “human-level dexterity.”

“Solving a Rubik’s Cube re-

quires unprecedented dexterity

and the ability to execute flaw-

lessly or recover from mistakes

successfully for a long period of

time,” the statement said. “Even

for humans, solving a Rubik’s

Cube one-handed is no simple

task — there are

43,252,003,274,489,856,

ways to scramble a Rubik’s

Cube.”

With this result, the statement

added, researchers move closer

to creating “general purpose ro-

bots with a technique that

should allow for robustly solving

any simulatable dexterous tasks.”

The multicolored, three-di-

mensional puzzles have befud-

dled game-playing humans since

the 1970s, but Rubik’s Cubes

have more recently proved a

useful tool for measuring the

capabilities of artificial intelli-

gence.

One reason, researchers say:

There are billions of potential

moves available to a Rubik’s

Cube player, with the puzzle’s six

sides and nine sections.

But there’s only one goal: each

of the cube’s sides displaying a

single color.

Finding a solution to a puzzle

with that degree of complexity

involves a degree of abstract

thinking that, researchers say,

begins to approximate human

reasoning.

For years now, researchers

have been programming robots

to solve Rubik’s Cubes as quickly

as possible. But more recently,

they’ve begun prioritizing self-

learning over speed.

In July, the University of Cali-

fornia at Irvine announced that

an artificial intelligence system

solved a Rubik’s cube in just over

a second, besting the current

human world record by more

than two seconds.

The system, known as Deep-

CubeA — a reinforcement-learn-

ing algorithm programmed by

computer scientists and mathe-

maticians at Irvine — solved the

puzzle without previous knowl-

edge of the game or coaching

from its human handlers, ac-

cording to the university.

Highly skilled humans are

able to conquer a Rubik’s Cube in

about 50 moves, but the AI

system is able to solve the cube in

about 20, usually in the mini-

mum number of steps possible,

researchers said.

The Irvine algorithm relies on

a neural network — a set of

algorithms designed to find un-

derlying relationships by mim-

icking how the human brain

processes information. The algo-

rithm also relied on machine

learning techniques, a system

that allows AI to learn by identi-

fying patterns and using infer-

ence with minimal human inter-

vention.

To prepare Dactyl for Rubik’s

Cube success, OpenAI’s research-

ers say they didn’t “explicitly

program” the machine to solve

the puzzle. Instead, the robot was

trained using virtual simulations

before it was presented with

challenges in the physical world

that tested its ability to learn.

The goal, researchers say, was

to create a robot that learns the

way humans do — through trial

and error. Eventually, those ro-

bots could be used to complete

tasks — in a warehouse or per-

haps on the surface of another

planet — with more autonomy.

Before it could solve the puz-

zle, Dactyl was forced to learn

how to hold and move the cube

on its own. As Dactyl improved at

each stage of learning, its algo-

rithm growing more adept, the

challenges intensified.

OpenAI posted a video on

YouTube showing Dactyl at vari-

ous points in the robot’s training

arc. The video captures the ma-

chine learning from scratch as it

awkwardly fumbles with a Ru-

bik’s Cube and later handling the

puzzle with much more control

and precision.

The video’s narrator says Dac-

tyl’s accomplishment could also

change how researchers view

training general-purpose robots.

Instead of thinking about creat-

ing complex algorithms for dif-

ferent environments, the narra-

tor says, roboticists can instead

focus on designing complex sce-

narios in which the machines

can learn.

“At some point,” the narrator

adds, “then it would be more

down to the imagination what

robots could actually accom-

plish.”

[email protected]

 More at washingtonpost.com/

business

ON I.T.

Robotic hand learns to solve puzzle

without scientists reaching in to help

The goal, researchers say, was to create a robot

that learns the way humans do —

through trial and error.

BY AARON GREGG

Hoping to speed the weapons
development process as it com-
petes with China and Russia for
technological preeminence, the
Pentagon has dramatically ex-
panded its use of a loophole that
allows the military to ignore fed-
eral acquisition rules designed to
protect the integrity of the bid-
ding process.
Other Transaction Authority
agreements, or OTAs, allow de-
fense agencies to sidestep the
Federal Acquisition Regulation, a
2,010-page document that gov-
ernment agencies typically have
to comply with when they make
large purchases.
The provision dates to the early
years of the space race, when
NASA was looking to quickly ac-
quire technologies from the com-
mercial technology world. The
Defense Department under Presi-
dent Trump has made prolific use
of such agreements, citing the
need to move faster in some
cases.
The agreements play into a
broader national security strat-
egy that is focused on shifting the
U.S. military’s resources away
from fighting terrorism and
toward preparing for an all-out
war with a “near peer” competi-
tor such as Russia or China.
The OTA provision is meant to
prioritize small businesses or
“nontraditional” defense contrac-
tors that do not usually work with
the government.
Traditional defense contrac-
tors can be eligible when they
meet certain criteria, meaning
industry giants such as Lockheed
Martin and Raytheon stand to
benefit as well.
The Army is using OTAs to buy
its next group of attack helicop-
ters, awarding an initial set of
contracts to companies that in-
clude Bell and a Lockheed Mar-
tin-Boeing team.
It also recently finalized a
$384 million deal with Raytheon
for six missile defense radars
called LTAMDS, which are de-
signed to replace the Patriot mis-
sile defense radar.
The new LTAMDS radar is
supposed to have a stronger sig-
nal and enhanced accuracy be-
cause it uses a substance called
gallium nitride.
Executives said the alternate
process allowed them to signifi-
cantly speed the acquisition.
“The streamlined OTA rapid
prototyping acquisition process
gets capability to the warfighter
more quickly,” Doug Burgess, pro-
gram director for Raytheon’s
LTAMDS radar, said in an email.
A recent report from the Cen-
ter for Strategic and Internation-
al Studies found the Defense De-
partment’s use of OTA agree-
ments has increased by about
350 percent since Trump took
office, totaling about $26.8 bil-
lion last year.
That activity has been led by

the Army, with an 86 percent

increase last year alone.

An Army spokesman said all of

the agreements go through an

approval process to ensure they

conform to a specific set of legal

requirements.

“Prior to each OTA award, ev-

ery proposed agreement is docu-

mented and approved to ensure

these conditions are met and the

OTA instrument is in fact the

appropriate method for procure-

ment,” spokesman Vinston Porter

said.

Defense analysts said such

tools could be useful for acceler-

ating the Defense Department’s

technology. They are favored be-

cause they provide a catchall so-

lution to what many regard as a

broken acquisition system, ana-

lysts said.

“Contractors and the govern-

ment alike don’t really like the

[Federal Acquisition] Regulation.

It costs money to comply with all

of it,” said Franklin Turner, a

government contracts lawyer

with the D.C. law firm McCarter &

English. “On the other hand, reg-

ulations are there for a reason: to

ensure full and open competition,

to ensure everyone is playing by

the rules.”

Some analysts are concerned

that the Defense Department

could overuse the OTA provision.

Dave Drabkin, a defense con-

sultant who led the congression-

ally mandated Section 809 Panel,

a group that provides recommen-

dations on streamlining the fed-

eral acquisition process, called

the OTA provision an “incredibly

important tool” for maintaining

the U.S. military’s competitive-

ness.

He said he is worried, however,

that Congress could take away

that tool if the Defense Depart-

ment uses it inappropriately.

“What the data shows is that a

lot of OTAs are being awarded to

traditional manufacturers for

whom the traditional purpose of

OTAs was not intended,” Drabkin

said.

Mandy Smithberger, an ana-

lyst with the Project on Govern-

ment Oversight, said there are “a

lot of reasons to be skeptical” of

such arrangements.

With an OTA contract, “there’s

less transparency, less ability to

assess the fairness of pricing, less

control over pricing,” Smithberg-

er said, adding, “I would say that

we’ve seen them used question-

ably.”

In one case from 2018, the

Defense Department tried to use

an OTA agreement to award a

contract with a $950 million ceil-

ing to Rean Cloud, an Amazon

Web Services partner. (Amazon

founder and chief executive Jeff

Bezos owns The Washington

Post.)

Facing criticism and a bid pro-

test from Amazon’s rivals, the

Pentagon abruptly slashed the

maximum value of the contract

from $950 million to no more

than $65 million, and it dramati-

cally limited the scope of the

work.

A government auditor later

ruled that the Pentagon “did not

properly exercise authority grant-

ed to it.”

[email protected]

Pentagon avoids

acquisition rules

by using OTAs

Agreements gain favor

as a tool to speed

weapons development

capital business

APPOINTMENTS

OPENAI

OpenAI posted a video on YouTube showing Dactyl at various points in the robot’s training arc. The video captures the machine learning

from scratch as it awkwardly fumbles with a Rubik’s Cube and later handling the puzzle with much more control and precision.

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