MuZero

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (May 2022)

This article is part of the series on
Chess programming
Board representations 0x88 Bitboards
Evaluation functions Deep neural networks (Transformers) Attention Efficiently updatable neural networks Handcrafted evaluation functions Piece-square tables Reinforcement learning Stochastic gradient descent Supervised learning Texel tuning Unsupervised learning
Graph and tree search algorithms Minimax Alpha-beta pruning Principal variation search Quiescence search Monte Carlo tree search
Chess computers Belle ChessMachine ChipTest Cray Blitz Deep Blue Deep Thought HiTech Hydra Mephisto Saitek
Chess engines AlphaZero Chess Tiger Crafty CuckooChess Deep Fritz Dragon by Komodo Chess Fairy-Max Fritz Fruit GNU Chess HIARCS Houdini Ikarus Junior KnightCap Komodo Leela Chess Zero MChess Pro Mittens MuZero Naum REBEL Rybka Shredder Sjeng SmarThink Stockfish Torch Turochamp Zappa
v t e

MuZero is a computer program developed by artificial intelligence research company DeepMind to master games without knowing their rules.^[1][2][3] Its release in 2019 included benchmarks of its performance in go, chess, shogi, and a standard suite of Atari games. The algorithm uses an approach similar to AlphaZero. It matched AlphaZero's performance in chess and shogi, improved on its performance in Go (setting a new world record), and improved on the state of the art in mastering a suite of 57 Atari games (the Arcade Learning Environment), a visually-complex domain.

MuZero was trained via self-play, with no access to rules, opening books, or endgame tablebases. The trained algorithm used the same convolutional and residual architecture as AlphaZero, but with 20 percent fewer computation steps per node in the search tree.^[4]

MuZero’s capacity to plan and learn effectively without explicit rules makes it a groundbreaking achievement in reinforcement learning and AI, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in artificial intelligence.