Google is using articles from the Daily Mail to teach its computers to read

Google is investing heavily in the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which teaches powerful computers how to perform a variety of complicated tasks. One of those is known as “natural language processing,” the ability to comprehend spoken or written language.

According to the MIT Technology Review, scientists at Google’s DeepMind unit, based in London, have found an unusual tool to train their computer-based neural networks: the websites of CNN and the Daily Mail, the UK tabloid that has become the world’s most popular online newspaper, according to Comscore.

DeepMind researchers are using a particular quirk of CNN and Daily Mail articles—they feature bullet-pointed summaries at the top—to create an annotated database that the computers can use to test their comprehension of any given story.

So what might be Google’s state-of-the-art computers be learning from the Daily Mail? The paper is known for its contentious and often rabble-rousing stances on issues like immigration, the Roma minority group, welfare beneficiaries, and the European Union. Here’s a quick selection of the things that Google’s artificial intelligences may now know:

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