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AI masters video game 6000 times faster by reading the instructions

An artificial intelligence has learned to master an Atari skiing game in days of playing time rather than the decades it took a specialist DeepMind AI, simply by reading the instructions written for humans before it started

By Matthew Sparkes

4 March 2023

Screenshot from the Atari game Skiing

In the Atari game Skiing, the object is to move left and right to hit poles while avoiding trees

An artificial intelligence has learned to play the Atari computer game Skiing 6000 times more quickly just by reading the instruction manual first. The same approach could help teach AIs to drive cars or robots to use household appliances.

Atari computer games from the 1980s have become a benchmark problem for AI research because they have simple controls, but greater complexity when it comes to completing levels.

The core approach is to …

Article amended on 9 March 2023

We have corrected the description of the aim of the game.

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