DeepMind has applied its mastery of games to a more serious business: the foundations of computer science.
The Google subsidiary today unveiled AlphaDev, anAIsystem that discovers new fundamental algorithms.
According to DeepMind, the algorithms its unearthed surpass those honed by human experts over decades.
The London-based lab has grand ambitions for the project.
The first target in this mission issorting algorithms, which are used to order data.
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To enhance their performance, AlphaDev explored assembly instructions, which are used to create binary code for computers.
After an exhaustive search, the system uncovered a sortingalgorithmthat outperformed the previous benchmarks.
Gaming the system
DeepMind made its name in games.
AlphaDev the new algorithm builder is based on AlphaZero.
But the influence of gaming extends beyond the underlying model.
We penalise it for making mistakes.
DeepMind formulated AlphaDevs task as a single-player game.
To win the game, the system had tobuild a new and improved sorting algorithm.
The system played its moves by selecting assembly instructions to add to the algorithm.
To find the optimal instructions, the system had to probe a vast quantity of instruction combinations.
According to DeepMind, the number was similar to the number of particles in the universe.
And just one bad choice could invalidate the entire algorithm.
As youve probably guessed, AlphaDev won the game.But the system didnt only find a correct and faster program.
It also discovered novel approaches to the task.
The new algorithms contained instruction sequences that saved a single instruction each time they were applied.
Dubbed swap and copy moves, they served as shortcuts to further algorithmic efficiencies.
The strange move shocked human experts, who thought the machine had made a mistake.
But they soon discovered that the program had a plan.
Three years later, Lee retired from professional Go competition.
He attributed the decision to the abilities of his AI rivals.
The result was another enhanced algorithm, which has nowbeen releasedin the open-source Abseil library.
DeepMind estimates that its being used trillions of times a day.
Ultimately, the lab envisionsAlphaDevas a step towards transforming the entire computing ecosystem.
And it all began with playing board games.
Story byThomas Macaulay
Thomas is the managing editor of TNW.
He leads our coverage of European tech and oversees our talented team of writers.
Away from work, he e(show all)Thomas is the managing editor of TNW.
He leads our coverage of European tech and oversees our talented team of writers.
Away from work, he enjoys playing chess (badly) and the guitar (even worse).
