The last decade has seen remarkable improvements in the ability of computers to understand the world around them. Photo software automatically recognizes people’s faces. Smartphones transcribe spoken ...

Neural networks are the core software of deep learning. Even though they’re so widespread, however, they’re really poorly understood. Researchers have observed their emergent properties without ...

When we design a skyscraper we expect it will perform to specification: that the tower will support so much weight and be able to withstand an earthquake of a certain strength. But with one of the ...

Humans have struggled to make truly intelligent machines. Maybe we need to let them get on with it themselves. A little stick figure with a wedge-shaped head shuffles across the screen. It moves in a ...

Deep neural networks can perform wonderful feats, thanks to their extremely large and complicated web of parameters. But their complexity is also their curse: The inner workings of neural networks are ...