Google and Microsoft are making gigantic artificial brains

Computers have long been good at carrying out assigned tasks but terrible at learning things on their own. Thus all the excitement around "neural networks," a breakthrough artificial intelligence technique that mimics the structure of the human brain and allows machines to learn things independently. Tech giants are using neural networks to do some pretty impressive things. Microsoft is using them to make instant translation real for Skype. Google's artificial intelligence learned Atari video games and then mastered the ancient game of Go, with its AlphaGo program beating the human champion Lee Sedol 4 to 1.