The man versus machine battle in the board games has seen the machine recording some stunning victorious feats in the recent past. This is more so in the game of Go, and the machine’s success in this front has been largely attributed to the Alphago computer program from Google. Alphago was designed by Google DeepMind in the city of London, with the intention of pitting it against human players. The A.I (Artificial Intelligence) has an innovative playing style that enabled it to make history last by being the first machine to defeat a competitively ranked world class Go player.
In March of 2016, this computer program beat Korea’s Lee Sedol, a 9-dan professional without handicaps. In 5-game match, the human Go legend lost 1-4. Although Lee Sedol beat Alphago in the fourth game, he gave up on the fifth, bringing the final score to 4-1 in favour Alphago. The next challenge for this brain-child from Google is to meet Ke Jie, the 19 year old Chinese lad who is now reputed as being the best human player on the planet. Ke Jie has been playing Go since the tender age of ten, and indeed his prowess at the game has seen him floor South Korea’s Lee Sedol a number of times. Ke Jie plays Alphago in the month of May 2017, and Go devotees are expectantly looking forward to this epic battle with bated breath. After its decisive victory over the South Korean, it is widely accepted that Alphago will be the favourite in the 3 game match against Ke.
At the same meet in China, Alphago is scheduled to be played against a team of five top Chinese GO professionals, and thereafter a pro versus pro match, in which each player takes turns with an Alphago teammate. This will be a good forum for a scientific observation on how the computer program reacts under different conditions and situations.
China Go Association and Google have collaborated to organize the much anticipated Future of Go Summit, where the games described above will take place. This is one forum that is expected to delve into the future of artificial intelligence, and in particular to assess the progress of human being’s most advanced A.I competitor: Google’s Alphago.
DeepMind CEO is of the opinion that artificial intelligence has increased the human players' creativity and performance. He contends that by poring over Alphago’s innovative game play, both professional and amateur human players have in the process acquired new tactics, strategies and knowledge of the game.
It is quite evident that a lot will be learnt from the Future of Go Summit that is planned for between 23rd and 27th May 2017, in China.
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