Google’s Software Beats Human Go Champion in First Match

Local Editor

Google's computer program AlphaGo defeated its human opponent, South Korean Go champion Lee Sedol, on Wednesday in the first face-off of a historic five-game match.

AlphaGo's victory in the ancient Chinese board game is a breakthrough for artificial intelligence, showing the program developed by Google DeepMind mastered one of the most creative and complex games ever devised.

Commentators said the match was close, with both AlphaGo and Lee making some mistakes and a result that was unpredictable until near the end.

Meanwhile, Lee's loss represented a shock to South Koreans and Go fans. The 33-year-old initially was confident of a sweeping victory two weeks ago, but sounded less optimistic a day before the match.

Lee said AlphaGo's early strategy was "excellent" and that he was stunned by one unconventional move it made that a human never would have played.

Despite his initial loss, he did not regret accepting the challenge.

"I had a lot of fun playing Go and I'm looking forward to the future games," he said.

The game was watched by hundreds of thousands of people live on TV and YouTube.

Top human players rely heavily on intuition and feelings to choose among a near-infinite number of board positions in Go, making the game extremely challenging for the artificial intelligence community.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team