Google Invents an AI System That Plays Video Games on Its Own
Don't ever challenge a machine to a game of Video Pinball
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Google has created the computer equivalent of a teenager: an artificial-intelligence system that spends all of its time playing—and mastering—video games. The company introduced the new development in machine-learning technology on Wednesday, describing it as "the first significant rung of the ladder" to building intelligent AI that can figure out how to do things on its own.
The research project, built by a London startup called DeepMind Technologies that Google acquired last year, exposed computers running general AI software to retro Atari games. The machines were shown 49 games on the Atari 2600, the home console beloved by all ’80s babies, and were told to play them, without any direction about how to do so.