Man vs. machine: An A.I. algorithm attempts to break a world speed record

Artificial intelligence algorithms may be able to beat grandmasters at chess, defeat champion players at Jeopardy!, and vanquish the world’s best Go players. One thing they can’t do: Beat the world’s zippiest cyclist for the speed record of the fastest human-powered vehicle at 83.13 mph. After all, the record includes the word “human” in its name.

That may be true, but it doesn’t mean that A.I. can’t play a major role in helping design the world’s most streamlined bike by honing the necessary measurements to cut air resistance to an absolute minimum. This is what a new machine learning algorithm created at the Computer Vision Laboratory of Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is currently being used for. According to its creators, the algorithm was trained on the aerodynamic qualities of different 3D shapes and, as a result, has an understanding about the laws of physics that would put many flesh-and-blood designers to shame.