How Google's DeepMind will train its AI inside Unity's video game worlds

DeepMind, part of Google parent company Alphabet, is going big on virtual world AI training through a deal with game-making software provider Unity Technologies (which powers games like Monument Valley and Pokémon Go). DeepMind will run the software at a giant scale to train algorithms in physics-realistic environments–part of a growing trend in AI. Game engines like Unity or Unreal provide customizable settings for advanced AI techniques such as reinforcement learning (a kind of machine learning), in which an algorithm pursues a goal through trial and error until it's been mastered. "Games are in many, many ways . . . "You get the visual, the physics, the cognitive, and . . . the social aspect–the interaction."