UC Irvine Deep Learning Machine Teaches Itself To Solve A Rubik's Cube

Anyone who has lived through the 1980s knows how maddeningly difficult it is to solve a Rubik's Cube, and to accomplish the feat without peeling the stickers off and rearranging them. Apparently the six-sided contraption presents a special kind of challenge to modern deep learning techniques that makes it more difficult than, say, learning to play chess or Go. That used to be the case, anyway. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, have developed a new deep learning technique that can teach itself to solve the Rubik's Cube. What they come up with is very different than an algorithm designed to solve the toy from any position. It's easy enough to take such an algorithm and then automate the process, but that kind of solution is limited in scope and utility.