DeepMind Developing An Artificial Intelligence With Imagination

DeepMind, a British artificial intelligence firm acquired by Google in 2014, is building an AI capable of "imagination" and understanding the consequences of previous actions. In two research papers submitted last week, DeepMind describes how the AI would be able to "construct a plan" and remember information that may be important in the future. "What differentiates these agents is that they learn a model of the world from noisy sensory data, rather than rely on privileged information such as a pre-specified, accurate simulator," said the DeepMind research team to Wired. "Imagination-based approaches are particularly helpful in situations where the agent is in a new situation and has little direct experience to rely on, or when its actions have irreversible consequences and thinking carefully is desirable over spontaneous action." Like most of DeepMind's research, it used video games to test the AI's proficiency.