Sunday 7 February 2016

Digital intuition

A computer program that can outplay humans in the abstract game of Go will redefine our relationship with machines.


Napoleon had it and so did Charles Darwin. Tennis champion Roger Federer has it in spades. The dictionary defines intuition as knowledge obtained without conscious reasoning. It is decision-making based on apparently instinctual responses; thinking without thinking.

Intuition is a very human skill, or so we like to think. Or, more accurately, so we liked to think. In what could prove to be a landmark moment for artificial intelligence, scientists announce this week that they have created an intuitive computer. The machine acts according to its programming, but it also chooses what to do on the basis of something — knowledge, experience or a combination of the two — that its programmers cannot predict or fully explain. And, in the limited tests carried out so far, the computer has proved that it can make these intuitive decisions much more effectively than the most skilled humans can. The machines are not just on the rise, they have nudged ahead

Read the editorial in Nature

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