DeepMind AI Robot just taught itself to walk ~ Tech Exit xyz

Google’s AI development team, DeepMind, has been getting its AI to teach itself to walk in virtual spaces - and the AI has come up with some unique and hilarious walking and running techniques.

The team has been using a technique known as reinforcement learning, which involves incentivizing the agent - in this case, the AI - to head towards an objective using a set number of sensors and abilities in what is described as a 'rich environment'. In this case, they didn’t explicitly incentivize the AI to use its “legs” in any specific way and the terrain wasn’t always linear, which is why the AI taught itself complex behaviors, like how to walk, as it learned how to use its various virtual limbs in an environment that had many options.