BBC News
By Leo Kelion
image captionMuZero was tested against Atari video games, chess and other classic board games
DeepMind s latest AI program can attain superhuman performance in tasks without needing to be given the rules.
Like the research hub s earlier artificial intelligence agents, MuZero achieved mastery in dozens of old Atari video games, chess, and the Asian board games of Go and Shogi.
But unlike its predecessors, it had to work out their rules for itself.
It is already being put to practical use to find a new way to encode videos, which could slash YouTube s costs. The real world is messy and complicated, and no-one gives us a rulebook for how it works, DeepMind s principal research scientist David Silver told the BBC.
In dire need of a refocused research agenda
23 Dec 2020 A doctor collects a swab sample from a man to be tested for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outside Clinic Ajwa in Shah Alam, Malaysia. File/Reuters
Steven Woloshin, Paul Glasziou and Susan Michie,
Tribune News Service
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen remarkable and rapid research in vaccines and therapeutics, but disappointingly little research to shed light on the interventions we currently use to reduce SARS-CoV2 transmission. That is a problem because even with vaccines on the way, we will be stuck with COVID-19 for a considerable time. We urgently need more research to identify and disseminate the most effective and least disruptive interventions and practices to reduce virus transmission, for this pandemic and the ones that will inevitably follow.
The City of London has long been the source of investment for the next big thing and its financiers are keen to make the most of our liberation from the EU with a new Big Bang. That was the dynamic slashing of financial regulations that gave Maggie Thatcher s 1980s their big boost. Combined with tax cuts, it would attract global investment in the way that Trump s economic stimulus gave the US its lowest unemployment since the 1960s - until Covid-19 halted progress.
In an echo of imperial days when the port of London was crowded with shipping, plans are already underway for a boom in foreign shipping registered in the UK.
Karl Lagerfeld
British model Stella Tennant has passed away. She was 50 years old.
A family spokesperson confirmed the tragic news in a statement: “It is with great sadness we announce the sudden death of Stella Tennant on 22 December 2020. Stella was a wonderful woman and an inspiration to us all. She will be greatly missed.”
Tennant’s striking look helped to define fashion in the ’90s her pixie haircut, piercing blue gaze, and angular figure resonated with the grunge era and were captured regularly by Patrick Demarchelier and Peter Lindbergh for
Harper’ Patrick Demarchelier
BAZAAR as recently as September 2013, modeling fine jewelry.
The NHS and care workers who have died during the coronavirus pandemic basildonstandard.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from basildonstandard.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.