AI Helps Amputees Walk With a Robotic Knee

Computer algorithms help prosthetic wearers walk within minutes rather than requiring hours of training

A movie montage for modern artificial intelligence might show a computer playing millions of games of chess or Go against itself to learn how to win. Now, researchers are exploring how the reinforcement learning technique that helped DeepMind’s AlphaZero conquer the chess and Go could tackle an even more complex task—training a robotic knee to help amputees walk smoothly.