Watch Google's smart AI figure out how to beat this video game all on its own

Google has invented an artificial intelligence that learns how to beat video games, from scratch, without any help or direction.

The experiment, from Google-owned DeepMind Technologies, is designed to show how intelligent AIs can figure out complex tasks for themselves. The company released some info today, including these two GIFs, which show the AI learning how to beat Breakout.

This is the AI, when first confronted with the problem:

And here it is after playing a few hundred times:

According to Google, the AI learned how to beat 49 games on the Atari 2600. The aim is to show how computers can learn even more complex tasks, like driving cars.

DeepMind was created by former game developer Demis Hassabis, but he has designs way beyond video games. "If this can drive the car in a racing game, then potentially, with a few real tweaks, it should be able to drive a real car," he said.