AlphaGo AI: Google's AI Defeats World Number One Go Player Ke Jie

By Edward Leano, Christian Post Contributor Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Google's AlphaGo, heralded as the foremost example of groundbreaking research into Artificial Intelligence, has done it again. This time, the software has beaten World number one Go player Ke Jie in the first round of their formal match.

AlphaGo gained popular recognition after defeating South Korean Go grandmaster Lee Sedol last year, according to The Guardian. The AI dispatched Sedol by winning their series four games over one, in a landmark match that stunned Go players around the world. The series was regarded as a set of five historic games that showcased Sedol's creativity and tenacity against Google's AI.

Now upgraded since its match with Sedol, AlphaGo faced off against 19-year old Chinese prodigy Ke Jie, widely regarded as the strongest player in the world. The first round took place in the city of Wuzhen. Commentator and 9-dan Go professional Michael Redmond commented before the match that he thinks "everyone recognizes that Ke Jie is the strongest human player," Redmond noted, according to The Verge.

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AlphaGo proceeded to win the match by the slimmest margin needed for victory — just half a point. The designers of AlphaGo has built the AI with this tendency, however. AlphaGo will execute a strategy that has the highest chances of winning, and it does not take the margin of victory into account.

Demis Hassabis, Chief Executive and co-founder of DeepMind, was nevertheless impressed by Jie's battle. "Huge respect to Ke Jie for playing such a great game and pushing AlphaGo to its limits," Hassabis said.

Ke Jie, who boasted before the match that no AI can defeat him, was in awe of his AI opponent after the match. "I feel like his game is more and more like the 'Go god'. Really, it is brilliant," he said.

Ke Jie further adds that AlphaGo may have become too strong for humans. While he would look into the AI for inspiration, Jie noted that he would like to limit himself to human opponents in the future, after these three matches scheduled against the AI.