For the first time an AI pilot has beaten champion-level humans at drone racing.

Until now, the lighting reflexes, quick decision-making and complex planning required to race around a track at the standard of elite human racers has proved insurmountable for artificial intelligences.

But this new system, called Swift, combines the simulation training that has allowed other AIs to triumph at chess, or video games, with onboard sensors and computation to outrace its human opponents in the real world.

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