DeepMind's AI helps untangle the mathematics of knots

Knot theorists proved the validity of a mathematical formula about knots after using machine learning to guess what the formula should be.Credit: DeepMind For the first time, machine learning has spotted mathematical connections that humans had missed. Researchers at AI powerhouse DeepMind, based in London, teamed up with mathematicians to tackle two separate problems -- one in the theory of knots and the other in the study of symmetries. In both cases, AI techniques helped the researchers discover new patterns that could then be investigated using conventional methods. "I was very struck at just how useful the machine-learning tools could be as a guide for intuition," says Marc Lackenby at the University of Oxford, UK, one of the mathematicians who took part in the study. "I was not expecting to have some of my preconceptions turned on their head."