AI researchers at Chinese tech beast Baidu have attempted to teach virtual bots English in a two-dimensional maze-like world. The study "paves the way for the idea of a family robot," a smart robo-butler that can understand orders given by its owner, it is claimed. This ability to handle normal language is essential to creating machines with human-level intelligence, the researchers argue in a paper now available on arXiv. Teaching bots language by describing the simulated world around them gives the software knowhow and knowledge that can be transferred from task to task – that's surprisingly hard to do correctly and a sign of general intelligence. The researchers compare their method to parents using language to coach a baby who is learning to walk and talk.