AlphaGo AI Beats Lee Se-dol 3-0 to Win Google DeepMind Challenge Series
The age old question whether Artificial Intelligence will one day take over the world has perhaps been answered. If you’ve been following the internet past few days, you will have heard that Google’s AI AlphaGo has been going one-on-one with 18-time world Go champion Lee Se-dol in a five match DeepMind Challenge Series. Today, in what is a historic victory for AI, AlphaGo beat Lee Se-dol 3-0 to clinch the series. Lee conceded the game after 176 moves.
AlphaGo is a program that was developed by DeepMind, a British AI company acquired by Google two years ago. Go is an ancient Chinese game that has been considered one of the toughest ever for an AI to beat at a world-class level. Go has been one of the most sought after AI challenges for its simplicity and elaborate possibilities.
Lee Se-dol’s loss to the AI three times in a row proved what many had felt unimaginable. Google has proved that AlphaGo is the next level of artificial intelligence. The third game further established the AI’s superiority. It was able to navigate tricky situations known as ko that didn’t come up in the prior two matches.
Now that AlphaGo has beaten Lee in three games, we wait to see if Lee can manage one win in the two games still left to play. If AlphaGo bases its moves on how Lee plays, then this means that the AI has been improving in each game, which would make the next one even harder for Lee to beat.
“I don’t know what to say and I would like to say sorry because I couldn’t show you my better results,” he said. “I think even if I go back I probably cannot defeat AlphaGo, and I think the competition was already settled in the second match.”
He said, “Humans have psychological issues while AlphaGo does not. Nevertheless, I think I will be able to discover AlphaGo’s weak points in the fourth and fifth match.
