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?"
It is clearly an April Fool's hack.