Google DeepMind: AI becomes more alien

Google's DeepMind says it has made another big advance in artificial intelligence by getting a machine to master the Chinese game of Go without help from human players. The AlphaGo program, devised by the tech giant's AI division, has already beaten two of the world's best players. It had started by learning from thousands of games played by humans. But the new AlphaGo Zero began with a blank Go board and no data apart from the rules, and then played itself. Within 72 hours it was good enough to beat the original program by 100 games to zero. DeepMind's chief executive, Demis Hassabis, said the system could now have more general applications in scientific research.