DeepMind's latest AI breakthrough is its most significant yet

The firm's latest Go-playing system not only defeated all previous versions of the software, it did it all by itself. "The most striking thing for me is we don't need any human data anymore," says Demis Hassabis, the CEO and co-founder of DeepMind. While the first version of AlphaGo needed to be trained on data from more than 100,000 human games, AlphaGo Zero can learn to play from a blank slate. Not only has DeepMind removed the need for the initial human data input, Zero is also able to learn faster than its predecessor. David Silver, the main programmer on DeepMind's Go project, says the original AlphaGo that defeated 18-time world champion Lee Sedol 4-1 required several months of training.