Google’s AlphaGo AI beats world’s best human Go player

Enlarge / China's 19-year-old Go player Ke Jie (L) prepares to make a move during the first match against Google's artificial intelligence program AlphaGo in Wuzhen, east China's Zhejiang province on May 23, 2017. (credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images)

DeepMind's AlphaGo AI has defeated Ke Jie in the first round of a best-of-three Go match in China. A video of the match is embedded below. Ke Jie was defeated by just a half a point-the closest margin possible-but scoring versus AlphaGo is a little bit disingenuous: DeepMind's AI doesn't try to win by a large margin; it just plots the surest route to victory, even if it's only by half a point.

Ke Jie is generally considered to be the world's best human Go player, but he wasn't expected to win; AlphaGo defeated the Chinese 19-year-old earlier in the year during an unbeaten online 60-match victory streak.

Today's real-life match was a little different, though. According to DeepMind cofounder Demis Hassabis, Ke Jie "used the ideas AlphaGo used in the online games in January"; in other words, Ke Jie tried to use AlphaGo's own moves against itself. Clearly it didn't quite work out, but "some wonderful moves were played," says Hassabis.

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