Google's AI program DeepMind learns human navigation skills

Notch up another win for the robots: the latest program from Google's artificial intelligence group, DeepMind, has trounced experts at a maze game after it learned to find its way around like a human. Scientists noticed that when they trained the AI to move through a landscape, it spontaneously developed electrical activity akin to that seen in the specialised brain cells that underpin human navigational skills. So-called'grid cells' were only identified in animals in 2005 in work that earned researchers a Nobel prize. The latest breakthrough reveals the potential for human brain-like activity to emerge from scratch in AI systems. Beyond making smarter programs, it paves the way for computer engineers to build models that help neuroscientists better understand the human brain.