DeepMind partners with gaming company for AI research

Artificial intelligence researchers are reaching out to gamers. We have been watching Alphabet's AI division DeepMind--acquired by Google in 2014--for years, particularly since it unveiled AlphaGo Zero, an AI capable of achieving superhuman intelligence without human assistance. Its latest project partners with Unity, one of the world's leading video game development platforms, and aims to research artificial intelligence agents and machine learning, with hopes of using it to improve costly technologies like robotics and self-driving cars. "The partnership will enable DeepMind to develop virtual environments and tasks in support of their fundamental AI research program," said Danny Lange, the vice president of AI and machine learning at Unity Technologies, in a blog post on Sept. 26. "Games and simulations have been a core part of DeepMind's research programme from the very beginning and this approach has already led to significant breakthroughs in AI research," Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, tells the Daily Dot via email.