Can Machine Learning Teach Us Anything?

The breathless headline caught my eye: "Computer Shows Human Intuition--AI Breakthrough!" (or words to that effect). I was intrigued but skeptical. Reading further, I learned that a computer program, AlphaZero, developed by a team at DeepMind, in London, had beaten other champion chess-playing programs, as well as (of course) humans. That wasn't the interesting news, as we take that kind of dominance for granted these days. What fascinated me was how the program had been constructed.