Groundbreaking AI can beat you at chess without even knowing the rules

DeepMind has developed an AI algorithm capable of mastering Go, chess and video games without being given the rules, marking another major breakthrough for Google’s artificial intelligence division.

The MuZero algorithm follows on from AlphaGo, which was the first computer program to beat a human champion at the complex board game Go.

Not only was MuZero able to master Go, it also taught itself to play chess, shogi and Atari video games without any human data or knowledge of the rules.

Researchers described MuZero as “a significant step forward in the pursuit of general-purpose algorithms”.