Google's new AI learns by baking tasty machine learning cookies

Google's computer scientists have created an AI to tweak the company's other AIs. The advanced machine learning system, which goes by the faintly sinister name of Google Vizier, automatically tunes algorithms right across Google's parent company Alphabet. But to test it, the researchers used an old-fashioned metric: cookie quality in the canteen. Modern machine learning systems are the algorithmic equivalent of Formula 1 racing cars. The systems have tremendous power, but they are extremely sensitive: to function effectively they need to be finely tuned, usually by hand.