Answers.Body: <p>Chieko Asakawa (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chieko_Asakawa" rel="nofollow">wiki</a>, <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/chieko_asakawa_how_new_technology_helps_blind_people_explore_the_world?language=en" rel="nofollow">TED</a>, <a href="http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=jp-CHIE" rel="nofollow">IBM</a>) is a major researcher in this area, and the linked TED talk is probably a good introduction to the state of the art as of 2015. <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2899509" rel="nofollow">Here's</a> a link to a 2016 paper on a smartphone navigation system.</p>
  
  <p>Guide animals perform manipulation tasks as well as identification tasks, and so it's not clear if those could be replaced well at all. (A smartphone that reads a label is a great help, but a dog that knows which bottle to grab and deliver to you is probably a much better help.)</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2016-08-09T21:46:31.383Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2016-08-09T21:46:31.383Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Matthew Gray
Body: <p>Were there any successful attempts to replace poor guide dogs used for blind people with AI to achieve similar rate of success? I guess dogs could be easily distracted and not reliable for every situation, and it probably takes less time to train AI, than a dog.</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-08-09T09:58:01.200Z
Comments.Text: One key difference is that dogs need to be trained on a per-instance basis, the AI algorithm only once, then copied to all devices. Right now, though, we'd better hope the AI doesn't mistake a high-sided lorry for empty sky, like the Tesla autopilot recently did.
Comments.UserDisplayName: NietzscheanAI
Tags: <neural-networks><applications>
Title: How close we are to replacing guide dogs with AI?
UserDisplayName: kenorb
ThreadText: # How close we are to replacing guide dogs with AI?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2016-08-09)
  
  Were there any successful attempts to replace poor guide dogs used for blind people with AI to achieve similar rate of success? I guess dogs could be easily distracted and not reliable for every situation, and it probably takes less time to train AI, than a dog.
  
  **Tags:** neural-networks, applications
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: One key difference is that dogs need to be trained on a per-instance basis, the AI algorithm only once, then copied to all devices. Right now, though, we'd better hope the AI doesn't mistake a high-sided lorry for empty sky, like the Tesla autopilot recently did.  
  
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  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2016-08-09. Score: 4 | Accepted answer
  
  Chieko Asakawa ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chieko_Asakawa), [TED](https://www.ted.com/talks/chieko_asakawa_how_new_technology_helps_blind_people_explore_the_world?language=en), [IBM](http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view.php?person=jp-CHIE)) is a major researcher in this area, and the linked TED talk is probably a good introduction to the state of the art as of 2015. [Here's](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2899509) a link to a 2016 paper on a smartphone navigation system.
  
  Guide animals perform manipulation tasks as well as identification tasks, and so it's not clear if those could be replaced well at all. (A smartphone that reads a label is a great help, but a dog that knows which bottle to grab and deliver to you is probably a much better help.)
  
  
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