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Google stunned the world by defeating Go legend Lee Se-dol yesterday, and it wasn't a fluke — AlphaGo, the AI program developed by Google's DeepMind unit, has just won the second game of a five-game Go match being held in Seoul, South Korea. AlphaGo prevailed in a gripping battle that saw Lee resign after hanging on in the final period ofbyo-yomi ("second-reading" in Japanese) overtime, which gave him fewer than 60 seconds to carry out each move.
"Yesterday I was surprised but today it's more than that — I am speechless," said Lee in the post-game press conference. "I admit that it was a very clear loss on my part. From the very beginning of the game I did not feel like there was a point that I was leading." DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis was "speechless" too. "I think it's testament to Lee Se-dol's incredible skills," he said. "We're very pleased that AlphaGo played some quite surprising and beautiful moves, according to the commentators, which was amazing to see."
The close nature of the game appears to offer validation of AlphaGo's evaluative ability, the main roadblock to proficiency for previous Go programs. Hassabis says that AlphaGo was confident in victory from the midway point of the game, even though the professional commentators couldn't tell which player was ahead.
Until yesterday, the ancient Chinese board game of Go had never been played to a world-class level by an AI. Computer programs have long bested the world's leading human players of games like checkers and chess, but Go's combination of simple rules and intricate strategy has made it a major challenge for artificial intelligence research.
Read more here. (The Verge)
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It also seems Chinese Go grandmaster Ke Jie's confidence in beating AlphaGo has been slightly toned down after watching yesterday's match.
"I have to say I underestimated the mind power of AlphaGo prior to the first match as I thought Lee Sedol can win in a 5-0 whitewash," said Ke, who holds a head-to-head record of eight wins and two losses against Lee.
HeartlessXiao said:I think it's more surprise and shock than anything else. Michael Redmond and Lee Sedol are both offering the program a lot of praise in the post game interview. Kim Mungwan 9p who was also commentating was offering endless praise for AlphaGo. The thing is, no one was expecting this sort of result for at least another couple of years.
ralgrado said:Yesterday a lot of commentators thought that Lee Sedol made some mistakes that seemed unlikely for him and therefore thought that Lee still has the best chances to win the best of five match. Today the commentator from the advanced stream said that it seems that Lee Sedol played a really good game and his mistakes seemed to be harder to find. Now I wouldn't wonder if AlphaGo wins 5-0 though I do hope that Lee Sedol can make it somehow closer.