acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

News

Reinforcement Renaissance


Reinforcement Renaissance, illustrative photo

Credit: Maxuser

Each time deepmind has announced an amazing accomplishment in game-playing computers in recent months, people have taken notice.

First, the Google-owned, London-based artificial intelligence (AI) research center wowed the world with a computer program that had taught itself to play nearly 50 different 1980s-era Atari games—from Pong and Breakout to Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Boxing, and more—using as input nothing but pixel positions and game scores, performing at or above the human level in more than half these varied games. Then, this January, DeepMind researchers impressed experts with a feat in the realm of strategy games: AlphaGo, their Go-playing program, beat the European champion in the ancient board game, which poses a much tougher AI challenge than chess. Less than two months later, AlphaGo scored an even greater victory: it won 4 games in a best-of-5 series against the best Go player in the world, surprising the champion himself.


 

No entries found

Log in to Read the Full Article

Sign In

Sign in using your ACM Web Account username and password to access premium content if you are an ACM member, Communications subscriber or Digital Library subscriber.

Need Access?

Please select one of the options below for access to premium content and features.

Create a Web Account

If you are already an ACM member, Communications subscriber, or Digital Library subscriber, please set up a web account to access premium content on this site.

Join the ACM

Become a member to take full advantage of ACM's outstanding computing information resources, networking opportunities, and other benefits.
  

Subscribe to Communications of the ACM Magazine

Get full access to 50+ years of CACM content and receive the print version of the magazine monthly.

Purchase the Article

Non-members can purchase this article or a copy of the magazine in which it appears.
Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account