Alphabet machine beats world’s top Go player in rare victory for AI
A MACHINE built by Alphabet Inc. has officially defeated the world’s top-ranked player of the board-game Go, a decisive demonstration of artificial intelligence’s ability to master complex human endeavours.
AlphaGo bested Ke Jie, 19, Chinese prodigy who boasted a year ago that the AI could never beat him at a game he’s played professionally since the age of 10. But on Thursday, the world No. 1 lost his second match in a threegame series in Wuzhen, China.
The victory, which came during a week-long conference dedicated to AI, is a show of strength for the parent of Google as it attempts to find a way to offer its services in the country.
Google’ss most popular services from Gmail to YouTube have been blocked by Chinese authorities since 2014.
Ke employed an ambitious strategy, opening up multiple fronts across the board in a move that online commentators said was an attempt to take advantage of AlphaGo’s preference for certainty over game points. But the AI-player gradually closed up opportunities and gained a large block of territory that would’ve been hard to break up.
The Chinese player declared AlphaGo a “god’ of the game after his first defeat on Tuesday.
Google is apparently emulating IBM. Its Deep Blue computer had defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. — Bloomberg