The gold standard of artificial intelligence is a computer that can learn the same way we do as humans. For example, if you see just one toothbrush and know its use, it’s pretty easy to identify other toothbrushes. If it’s long, thin, has little bristles and a handle, we can be pretty sure it’s a toothbrush. And since we know it has to fit in a mouth, we can imagine what would be a good tool for the job, and what might not, further limiting what a toothbrush can be. Getting machines to learn this way has been a struggle, because complex objects, like toothbrushes, have to be explained in mathematics formulas so the computer can understand it. A lot of work in machine learning, which is how we tackle artificial intelligence, is centered around how to best represent objects and ideas so computers can understand them. Other computers can already do this with deep learning, a discipline within artificial intelligence that uses networks of mathematics equations to underst...