Artificial intelligence
Affordance
Definition
An affordance is an action possibility offered by an environment to a particular agent. In robotics, the term often describes whether a robot can perform a specific action on an object or in a scene, sometimes represented by a learned score or spatial map.
Also known as: Affordances
Updated
Possibilities depend on the robot and situation
A handle may offer a grasp to one gripper while being too narrow or unreachable for another. Affordance describes the relation between an action, the agent's capabilities, and the current environment, rather than merely naming an object category.
SayCan grounds language-based task selection using estimates of whether the robot's available skills can succeed in its present state. These estimates supply information that a language model's task descriptions alone do not provide.
Robotics systems represent affordances differently
In SayCan, learned value functions help estimate skill feasibility. CLIPort uses spatial predictions for picking and placing, described by the authors as affordance predictions.
The word can therefore refer to a skill-level possibility or a location-specific action estimate. A report should identify the action being scored and what the score means.
A prediction is not a physical guarantee
A high predicted grasp score means the model favors that action under its training and observation assumptions. It does not establish that the object will remain stable or that every subsequent manipulation step will succeed.
For robotic manipulation, evaluate the full action and outcome. Detecting a plausible place to grip is useful evidence about action selection, but it is not equivalent to demonstrating the complete task.
Sources
Related terms
Robotic manipulation
Robotic manipulation is the use of a robot to change an object's position, orientation, or state through physical interaction. It includes grasping and moving objects as well as actions such as pushing or carrying them without a grasp.
Language-conditioned policy
A language-conditioned policy selects actions using a language instruction together with observations. The instruction specifies or modifies the behavior requested from the policy.
End effector
An end effector is the part of a robot positioned to perform a task at the end of a manipulator, such as a gripper, hand, suction tool, or welding tool. Its pose and interaction forces are often the quantities a task controller regulates.