Eagle-eyed machine learning algorithm outdoes human experts

Artificial intelligence is now so smart that silicon brains frequently outthink people. Computers operate self-driving cars, pick friends' faces out of photos on Facebook, and are learning to take on jobs typically entrusted only to human experts. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have trained computers to quickly and consistently detect and analyze microscopic radiation damage to materials under consideration for nuclear reactors. And the computers bested humans in this arduous task. "Machine learning has great potential to transform the current, human-involved approach of image analysis in microscopy," says Wei Li, who earned his master's degree in materials science and engineering this year from UW–Madison.