Directions of AI Research in 2018

Many existing Reinforcement Learning (RL) systems already rely on simulations to explore the solution space and solve complex problems. These include systems based on Self-Play for gaming applications. Self-Play is an essential part of the algorithms used by Google DeepMind in AlphaGo and in the more recent AlphaGo Zero reinforcement learning systems. These are the breakthrough approaches that have defeated the world champion at the ancient Chinese game of Go (D. Silver et al., 2017 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24270 The newer AlphaGo Zero system has achieved a significant step forward compared to the original Alpha Go system.