A new study from Caltech compares brain scans of humans playing classic Atari video games to sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) networks that have been trained to play the same games. The research was led by graduate student Logan Cross, in the laboratory of TCCI®-affiliated Professor of Psychology John O’Doherty and found that the activity in the artificial “neurons” in the AI looked quite similar to activity in the human brain. This implies that the AI agent may solve these decision-making tasks similarly to the human brain, making it a good model for studying how the human brain maps high-dimensional visual input into actions in complex environments.
A paper describing the research appeared in the journal Neuron on December 15.