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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 start-up 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.
When the computers passed a level or racked up a high score, they were automatically rewarded with the digital equivalent of a dog treat. Google's AI system surpassed the performance of expert humans in 29 games, and outperformed the best-known algorithmic methods for completing games in 43 instances.
Clean power bet
Google Inc is making its largest bet yet on renewable energy, a $300-million investment to support at least 25,000 SolarCity Corp rooftop power plants.
Google is contributing to a SolarCity fund valued at $750 million, the largest ever created for residential solar, the San Mateo, California-based solar panel installer said Thursday in a statement.
