What Makes Atari Games Interesting?

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Deep reinforcement learning is a way of teaching computers how to play games. It uses two technologies: deep learning and reinforcement learning. The former lets the computer work out what it can do in an environment, while the latter helps it make decisions about its own behaviour. This approach was first used by Alpago Wish - our go game programme.

Demis Hassabis is one of tech's most brilliant minds. A chess-playing child prodigy turned researcher and founder of headline-making AI company DeepMind, Demis is thinking through some of the most revolutionary — and in some cases controversial — uses of artificial intelligence. From the development of computer program AlphaGo, which beat out world champions in the board game Go, to making leaps in the research of how proteins fold, Demis is at the helm of the next generation of groundbreaking technology. In this episode, he gives a peek into some of the questions that his top-level projects are asking, talks about how gaming, creativity, and intelligence inform his approach to tech, and muses on where AI is headed next.

This is an episode of "The TED Interview," a podcast in the TED Audio Collective. It's hosted by author Steven Johnson. To check out the rest of their episodes, including a recent mini-series on the future of human intelligence, follow the show wherever you're listening to this.