Google’s AlphaGo AI has proved that machines are now smarter than man — when it comes to games of strategy.
AlphaGo defeated high-profile Go player Lee Sedol 4-1, but now it has beaten the world’s best player of Go, the hugely complex ancient strategy game.
AlphaGo won against Go world champion Ke Jie to clinch a second, decisive win of a three-part series that is taking place in China.
19-year-old Ke Jie narrowly lost the first time, but this time AlphaGo forced its Chinese opponent into conceding. That’s despite Ke Jie playing “perfectly” at the beginning of the tie, according to AlphaGo’s analysis.
About AlphaGo:
AlphaGo was created by London-based DeepMind, which was acquired by Google for around $500 million in 2014.
Beyond winning showcase matches with the world’s top Go players, DeepMind believes its technology has practical and everyday uses that can “solve intelligence and make the world a better place.”
In October 2015, it became the first Computer Go program to beat a human professional Go player without handicaps on a full-sized 19×19 board.
AlphaGo’s algorithm uses a Monte Carlo tree search to find its moves based on knowledge previously “learned” by machine learning, specifically by an artificial neural network (a deep learning method) by extensive training, both from human and computer play.