Google Deepmind’s AlphaGo has won the series 4-1 astonishing many Go experters around the world and especially Lee Sedol himself as well.
Advertisement
It’s final! Google’s artificial intelligence won the fifth and final match against Lee Sedol, grandmaster of the ancient Chinese game Go, on Tuesday. Even reigning three-time European Go champion Fan Hui was no match for the machine, which triumphed five games to zero, marking the first time a computer program beat a pro Go player.
The week-long showdown between the South Korean Go grandmaster and Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence program showed the computer software has mastered a major challenge for artificial intelligence. “Ultimately, we want to apply this to big real-world problems”.
In Go, players take turn placing stones on a 19-by-19 grid, competing to take control of the most territory.
Lee was apparently questioning his love for Go prior to the matches with AlphaGo, but he said that the recent matches had renewed his passion for the game. It has already, effectively, beaten Lee in the tournament, having won the first three games, however, the final match is still to be played and will be held on Tuesday, 15 March.
AlphaGo boasts of a deep learning capability to learn for itself and discover new strategies by playing games against itself and adjusting neural networks based on a trial-and-error process known as reinforcement learning. The one-million-dollar prize put up by Google will be donated to charity.
“I think humans can’t chase AlphaGo in terms of psychological aspects [of the game] and concentration”.
The professional player said that playing against an AI program was different, and he felt he struggled to adapt to this at the beginning of the tournament. “That’s why it’s a hard game, and humans take years to train on it and it takes a lot of brainpower – but this is where machines are good”. The number of possible positions in the game are more than, as they say, the number of atoms in the universe.
In a press conference after the match, DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis said the last game was “the most exciting and stressful one for us”.
The 33-year-old vowed that this experience against the self-learning program will make him a better player in the future.
Lee voiced his doubts whether he will be able to defeat AlphaGo in another match, but he said AlphaGo remains at a level that humans can play tightly.
Advertisement
“AlphaGo has the potential to be a huge study tool for us professionals, when it’s available for us to play at home”, Redmond said.
