Computer Learns To Play Go At Superhuman Levels 'Without Human Knowledge'

Computer Learns To Play Go At Superhuman Levels 'Without Human Knowledge' Enlarge this image toggle caption DeepMind DeepMind A year after a computer beat a human world champion in the ancient strategy game of Go, researchers say they have constructed an even stronger version of the program — one that can teach itself without the benefit of human knowledge. "In a short space of time, AlphaGo Zero has understood all of the Go knowledge that has been accumulated by humans over thousands of years of playing," lead researcher David Silver of Google's DeepMind lab said in remarks on YouTube. The program hasn't mastered Go without human knowledge, he says, because "actually prior knowledge has gone into the construction of the algorithm itself." Sponsor Message In a written statement, DeepMind said that "nothing in the AlphaGo Zero algorithm is specific to the game of Go" and added that the team is "currently applying the same algorithm to other sequential problems and are confident that this approach is generalisable to a large number of domains."