Microsoft wants to teach drones, robots and drills how to think

Microsoft Corp and technology rivals spend a lot of time talking about machine learning. Now Microsoft is talking about something called machine teaching.

No, the software maker doesn’t plan to send robots into classrooms. In a world where factories and wind farms will increasingly run on autonomoussystems, drones will criss-cross cities delivering packages and robots will operate in underground mines, Microsoft wants to make the software that helps mechanical and chemical engineers teachthose devices how to behave, where to go and how to maintain safe conditions.

Microsoft last year acquired a company called Bonsai that makes this kind of software, merged it with some work from its research arm a group of Microsoft researchers wrote a paper on this idea back in 2017 and is now expanding a software preview so more potential customers can test it.