Google's DeepMind gives an AI human-like memory to solve tough problems

With the advances of modern data storage technology, chips the size of your fingernail are capable of storing an entire library's worth of knowledge, so one thing you might think computers do better than people is remember things. But according to Google Inc.'s DeepMind team, the artificial intelligence research group that developed AlphaGo, that is not entirely true. In a new paper published in the journal Nature, DeepMind has outlined a process where it trained a neural network to have human-like memory, giving it not only the ability to store data, but also to recall that information and use it to solve novel problems. "Neural networks excel at pattern recognition and quick, reactive decision-making, but we are only just beginning to build neural networks that can think slowly – that is, deliberate or reason using knowledge," the DeepMind team wrote in a recent blog post. "For example, how could a neural network store memories for facts like the connections in a transport network and then logically reason about its pieces of knowledge to answer questions?" DeepMind calls its new method differentiable neural computers, and the team demonstrated its capabilities using the London Underground, one of the largest public transit systems in the world.