AI masters Minecraft: DeepMind program finds diamonds without being taught

I think the emphasis on doing X "without being shown" is misguided. Brute force is always an option, we already know that, but explicit teaching is more efficient.

The actual holy grail of AI is transfering knowledge. Play Minecraft, learn that you can mine diamonds. Later on when observing the real world, consider that perhaps diamonds are out there and perhaps some steps need to be taken.

It looks like were're going to have AIs helping us play Minecraft soon. It seems like they did have to nudge it in the right direction though so it could discover how to mine diamonds.

Did it have fun though?