AI learns Nobel prize-winning quantum experiment

A team of Australian physicists has employed a new research assistant in the form of an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to help set up experiments in quantum mechanics. For its first task, the algorithm took control of a delicate experiment to create a Bose-Einstein condensate – a weird state of matter that can form in certain atoms at ultracold temperatures. The algorithm didn't need specific training and was able to learn on the job. It developed its own model of the process and tweaking the parameters to get them just right. "I didn't expect the machine could learn to do the experiment itself, from scratch, in under an hour," said co-lead researcher Paul Wigley from the Australian National University in Canberra.