Last Week in AI #49

AI Recreates Pac-Man By Watching it Being Played

Researchers at Nvidia - a company known for manufacturing graphics cards - have taught an AI system to recreate the game of Pac-Man just by watching it being played. Using a system dubbed GameGAN, the AI was able to capture the dynamics of the game. Although the end result is far from perfect, it shows promise for how AI will be used to design games in the future.

Read more at:The Verge

COVID-19 Forces Self-driving Cars Into Virtual Learning

Unable to venture out in the real world, autonomous vehicles have been forced to find novel ways for training. Several companies have traded road tests for delving deep into their algorithms, revisiting the countless hours of data they have collected over the years in order to run simulations of traffic conditions and make up new driving scenarios.

Read more at:MIT Tech Review

Lab ‘Cooks’ With AI to Make New Materials

A Canadian lab is using AI in order to find ways it could turn carbon dioxide into useful materials instead of releasing it into the environment. The lab is studying the possibility of turning the greenhouse gas into ethylene - a common ingredient in plastic - which it could then sell. They hope these methods will accelerate the discovery of new materials in the future.

Read more at: WIRED