Artificial intelligence goes deep to beat humans at poker

Machines are finally getting the best of humans at poker. Two artificial intelligence (AI) programs have finally proven they "know when to hold'em, and when to fold'em," recently beating human professional card players for the first time at the popular poker game of Texas Hold'em. And this week the team behind one of those AIs, known as DeepStack, has divulged some of the secrets to its success--a triumph that could one day lead to AIs that perform tasks ranging from from beefing up airline security to simplifying business negotiations. AIs have long dominated games such as chess, and last year one conquered Go, but they have made relatively lousy poker players. In DeepStack researchers have broken their poker losing streak by combining new algorithms and deep machine learning, a form of computer science that in some ways mimics the human brain, allowing machines to teach themselves.