Google has created a neural network that can multitask

Deep-learning systems, which use artificial networks modelled on the human brain, tend to only able to do one task at a time. But now, for the first time, Google has created a system that can do eight tasks at once, including image and speech recognition and language translation. The research suggests that AI could be taught to multitask in the future and become more like humans in the way they think. The network is capable of learning eight different tasks simultaneously. It can detect objects in images, provide captions, recognise speech, translate between four pairs of languages, and do grammatical constituency parsing at the same time.