Unleashing the Potential of Reinforcement Learning

O'Reilly Radar

In this episode of the Data Show, I spoke with Danny Lange, VP of AI and machine learning at Unity Technologies. Lange previously led data and machine learning teams at Microsoft, Amazon, and Uber, where his teams were responsible for building data science tools used by other developers and analysts within those companies. When I first heard that he was moving to Unity, I was curious as to why he decided to join a company whose core product targets game developers. As you’ll glean from our conversation, Unity is at the forefront of some of the most exciting, practical applications of deep learning (DL) and reinforcement learning (RL). Realistic scenery and imagery are critical for modern games. GANs and related semi-supervised techniques can ease content creation by enabling artists to produce realistic images much more quickly. In a previous post, Lange described how reinforcement learning opens up the possibility of training/learning rather than programming in game development. Lange explains why simulation environments are going to be important tools for AI developers. We are still in the early days of machine intelligence, and I am looking forward to more tools that can democratize AI research (including future releases by Lange and his team at Unity).