I am interested in this line of research, I feel it needs a lot more work than one paper, though.
A key question is whether we can dig down into the relationship between environments and learning agents. Are there low complexity environments that neural networks do badly in?
What is really essential about our laws of physics to create a world that neural networks do relatively well in?
"The answer is that the universe is governed by a tiny subset of all possible functions. In other words, when the laws of physics are written down mathematically, they can all be described by functions that have a remarkable set of simple properties."
“For reasons that are still not fully understood, our universe can be accurately described by polynomial Hamiltonians of low order.” These properties mean that neural networks do not need to approximate an infinitude of possible mathematical functions but only a tiny subset of the simplest ones."
Interesting article, and just diving into the paper now, but it looks like this is a big boost to the simulation argument. If the universe is built like a game engine, with stacked sets like Mandelbrots, then the simplicity itself becomes a driver in a fabricated reality.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602344/the-extraordinary-link-between-deep-neural-networks-and-the-nature-of-the-universe/
Why does deep and cheap learning work so well?
http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.08225