Much of the work undertaken by artificial intelligence involves a training process known as machine learning, where AI gets better at a task such as recognising a cat or mapping a route the more it does it. Now that same technique is being use to cre
Much of the work undertaken by artificial intelligence involves a training process known as machine learning, where AI gets better at a task such as recognising a cat or mapping a route the more it does it. Now that same technique is being use to create new AI systems, without any human intervention.
For years, engineers at Google have been working on a freakishly smart machine learning system known as the AutoML system (or automatic machine learning system), which is already capable of creating AI that outperforms anything we’ve made.
Now, researchers have tweaked it to incorporate concepts of Darwinian evolution and shown it can build AI programs that continue to improve upon themselves faster than they would if humans were doing the coding.
The new system is called AutoML-Zero, and although it may sound a little alarming, it could lead to the rapid development of smarter systems – for example, neural networked designed to more accurately mimic the human brain with multiple layers and weightings, something human coders have struggled with.
"It is possible today to automatically discover complete machine learning algorithms just using basic mathematical operations as building blocks," write the researchers in their pre-print paper. "We demonstrate this by introducing a novel framework that significantly reduces human bias through a generic search space."
The original AutoML system is intended to make it easier for apps…