TensorFlow, AI, Autopilot, VendeeGlobe

[seandepagnier]

I am not sure I understand this reply.  Can you elaborate?  

As I see it, the only input to the system that a human provides is the steering of the helm (Ignoring the sheeting for simplicity for now).  If the AI is entirely meant to mimic a better response at the helm than your current software by learning how a human would steer it, how else would an AI have any way of getting feedback besides rudder position feedback?

I understand, your system does not need that feedback, but I can't see how an AI learning program can do it.

I explained it.

You said " If the AI is entirely meant to mimic a better response at the helm than your current software by learning how a human would steer it" This is wrong. It is not meant to learn from a human. Humans are not that smart anyway. It is meant to learn how the boat will react given potential rudder movements. That is what it learns. From the ability to predict the future motion of the boat it can decide which movement is best. For this, rudder feedback is optional. Rudder feedback would actually also be optional even if it were mimicking a human's relative rudder adjustments as well but doing this will limit you to the ability of a human and more importantly you wont have much training data unless you do lots of hand steering.