The scientific community has made tremendous strides in developing neural networks, computer systems that are built to operate like the human brain. Researchers have managed to get these systems to beat the world's best Go players, identify images and shrink their file sizes. Heck, we've even taught them to write like Philip K Dick. Most incredibly, Google recently taught two nets to design their own encryption algorithm. The problem, however, is that even the researchers that designed these systems aren't particularly sure how they actually work.

Turns out, the inner workings of neural networks really aren't any easier to understand than those of the human brain. But thanks to research coming out of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), that could soon change. They've devised a means of making these digital minds not just provide the correct answer, classification or prediction, but also explain the rationale behind its choice. And with this ability, researchers hope to bring a new weapon to bear in the fight against breast cancer. The scientific community has made tremendous strides in developing neural networks, computer systems that are built to operate like the human brain.