i agree that it is an interesting result, however having access to everything is weird from an AI point of view and really muddies any conclusions to be drawn; the headline seems to make it sound like this is a breakthrough in AI, when it is using a cheat that won't apply to any sort of real situation.
notice that in your example of solitaire, knowing the values of hidden cards really changes the nature of the game and makes playing the game much less strategic
Not sure why TechCrunch made it seem that way ("a breakthrough in AI"), when the author explicitly says he's submitted this to SIGBOVIK 2013 -- an April 1 conference that usually publishes fake research. (http://sigbovik.org/2013/)
This is from the paper. "I tried again, and it was a huge breakthrough: Mario jumped up to get all the coins, and then almost immediately jumped back down to continue the level! On his fi rst try he beat 1-2 and then immediately jumped in
the pit at the beginning of 1-3 just as I was starting to
feel suuuuuper smart (Figure 7). On a scale of OMFG
to WTFLOL I was like whaaaaaaat?"
notice that in your example of solitaire, knowing the values of hidden cards really changes the nature of the game and makes playing the game much less strategic