Google does not have regulatory approval for its NHS healthcare deal. Two weeks ago, New Scientist revealed that Google's artificial intelligence company DeepMind has access to the personal medical information of millions of UK patients through a data-sharing agreement with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. A New Scientist investigation has found that the project is being carried out without the ethical and regulatory approval that experts say are required. Google and the Royal Free both claim to be acting in compliance with the rules as they interpret them. A collaboration between DeepMind and the NHS has the potential to do great things.

DeepMind, Google's AI lab in London, is well known for creating an algorithm that beat the best human in the world at Chinese board game Go. It's also been in the news this month for the controversial work it's doing with the NHS in healthcare. But DeepMind is understood to have a collection of other projects on the go that no one knows about. The research-intensive organisation, which employs around 250 people in a discreet building in King's Cross, writes on its website that it is building self-learning algorithms that can complete a wide variety of tasks straight out of the box. The company, which was backed by PayPal billionaire Elon Musk in its early days, also writes on its website that it wants to "solve intelligence" to "make the world a better place."

OpenAI Gym is a toolkit for developing and comparing reinforcement learning algorithms. This is the gym open-source library, which gives you access to an ever-growing variety of environments. You can use it from Python code, and soon from other languages. If you're not sure where to start, we recommend beginning with the docs on our site. There are two basic concepts in reinforcement learning: the environment (namely, the outside world) and the agent (namely, the algorithm you are writing).

Now WATSON HEALTH AI is being used in 16 cancer institutes across the country, helping to diagnose and treat patients. Meanwhile Google, not to be outdone, has launched DeepMind, which recently earned the title world champion of the complex game of Go. Now, DeepMind Health will create innovative new apps for healthcare professionals alerting them to patient emergencies, and the risk of complications when considering possible treatment options. Progenitors say that someday, it should even be able to predict a patient's needs down the pike. Other tech companies such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, and Hitachi are also putting together AI programs for the healthcare field. Within the next five years, AI's use in medicine is expected to increase tenfold.

As you can see in the first video, some of the clips look no better than some of the images that come out of Google's DeepMind. Others, however, like the scenes from Cloud Atlas and the Jungle Book, seem significantly better-looking after being processed. It's still early days, but there are plenty of areas in both filmmaking and art where systems like this could be applied. Right now, it's computationally intensive, but not so much that you can't expect the cost and availability of such power to drop. As MIT Tech Review explains, it takes three minutes for each frame to be processed on a system using NVIDIA's 1,000-plus Titan X graphics card.

If you're interested in working with machine learning and artificial-intelligence algorithms--but unsure of how to start--check out the OpenAI Gym, now in beta. The premise behind OpenAI Gym is simple: it's a toolkit for building reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms, which govern bots' decision-making and motor-control capabilities. Reinforcement learning is a key element in A.I. development, as it allows software to deal with random, unpredictable environments; one "classic" problem involves balancing an untethered pole on a rolling cart: OpenAI is a non-profit "artificial intelligence research company" funded by some heavy hitters in the tech world, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Its altruistic goal is to develop open-source A.I. software that's "friendly" to humanity. According to a blog posting accompanying the launch of OpenAI Gym, RL research is slowed by two factors: a need for better benchmarks, and a lack of standardization of environments used in publications.

OpenAI and Shocking AI Salaries This week, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, head of the famed incubator Y Combinator, announced the launch of the OpenAI project, which is a company that's building AI products and services and giving away their tech for free. Just after the announcement, OpenAI's team of researchers were reportedly mobbed with huge employment offers from some of the tech world's biggest firms. Microsoft's Vice President of Research said that the cost of a top artificial intelligence researcher has eclipsed the cost of a top quarterback prospect in the National Football League. CLICK TO TWEET THIS: The cost of a top artificial intelligence researcher has eclipsed the cost of a top quarterback prospect in the National Football League. Bill Gates' 2b Clean Energy Fund Recently, the MIT Technology Review sat down for a Q&A session with Bill Gates and they discussed the Breakthrough Energy Coalition.

The space and renewable energy tycoon has launched yet another pioneer non-profit project which can change the world of robotics today. Elon Musk developed a 1 billion-program "Robot Gym" to train artificial intelligence. He says he wanted the robots to be as versatile as humans when it comes to thinking. Our reinforcement learning toolkit, OpenAI Gym, is now in public beta: https://t.co/8fMRLjSJQb. Tesla's CEO, together with Sam Altman, created the artificial intelligence non-profit research company.

It's no secret that Google has broad ambitions in healthcare. But a document obtained by New Scientist reveals that the tech giant's collaboration with the UK's National Health Service goes far beyond what has been publicly announced. The document – a data-sharing agreement between Google-owned artificial intelligence company DeepMind and the Royal Free NHS Trust – gives the clearest picture yet of what the company is doing and what sensitive data it now has access to. The agreement gives DeepMind access to a wide range of healthcare data on the 1.6 million patients who pass through three London hospitals run by the Royal Free NHS Trust – Barnet, Chase Farm and the Royal Free – each year. This will include information about people who are HIV-positive, for instance, as well as details of drug overdoses and abortions.

When it was revealed that Google's London-based company DeepMind would be able to access the NHS records of 1.6 million patients who use three London hospitals run by the Royal Free NHS trust – Barnet, Chase Farm and the Royal Free – it rang alarm bells. Not just because Google, a sprawling octopus of a company with tentacles in all our lives, wishes to "organise the world's information". Not just because patients are unlikely to have consented to Google having this information. The issue for many is the intertwining of these concerns with the idea of artificial intelligence (AI). DeepMind is no ordinary company.