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Meng Jing

Just a year ago, the Chinese ­master of the complex game known as Go was insisting no computer could ever outplay him.
Yesterday, Ke Jie was in tears, calling the artificial intelligence programme developed by Google that beat him in three straight matches “perfect, flawless, without any emotions”.
“I’m very sorry I lost,” 19-year-old Ke told the post-match press conference in Wuzhen in Zhejiang province. “I wish I could have done better,” he said.

Go, also known as weiqi, is played on a 19x19 grid board by two opponents. With more permutations than the total number of estimated atoms in the visible universe, it has been a benchmark for measuring the human mind against artificial intelligence after IBM’s Deep Blue beat chess grand master Garry Kasparov in 1997.
AlphaGo wins first match of three over Chinese Go master with ability to surprise
Computer scientists and futurists had predicted AI would need at least a decade before it could decisively conquer the game.
The final match took less than four hours to decide.

The programme, developed by Google’s DeepMind Lab and called AlphaGo, uses two neural networks to analyse the game – one that selects its next move while the other evaluates the decision. This allows it to adapt to the situation in real time, planning 50 moves ahead and even play out hundreds of thousands of games against itself, all the while learning and improving.
ALPHAGO’S CHINA SHOWDOWN: WHY IT’S TIME TO EMBRACE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
It won Tuesday’s initial match in 289 moves played out over four and half hours. Ke declared ­AlphaGo “like God” after it pulled several surprise moves. Those surprises kept coming all week, with the programme making “unusual” and “interesting” moves against him. “I made several bad moves, moves that I regret, because I wanted to play well too much,” Ke said, conceding he would never be able to beat ­AlphaGo in his ­lifetime.
The odds were stacked against Ke from the start. He had already lost to AlphaGo in an online match in January, and last year, the programme dispatched South Korea’s Lee Sedol, the ranking Go champion at the time, in a 4-1 match. Following the latest matches, AlphaGo was awarded the highest honour by the Chinese Weiqi Association. 
DeepMind’s co-founder and chief executive Demis Hassabis said AlphaGo would stop retire as the top players in China represented the highest possible level of human achievement in the game.
For the mainland, the Wuzhen showdown was ripe with irony and symbolism. China is the birthplace of wieqi, with records showing it was played as early as the Zhou dynasty (1046BC-256BC).
Wuzhen is also host of the ­annual World Internet Conference, where the government touts its version of an internet walled off from the rest of the world. With Google banned on the mainland, censors had been managing the expectations of the home audience since the competition began.
Live broadcasts, originally scheduled with CCTV5, were ­cancelled. The game could not be found on many of the most popular streaming services on the mainland, such as Tencent and Sina.
Still, DeepMind organised a five-day Go festival where players held matches against artificial ­intelligence or formed teams against a single machine player.
“AlphaGo’s successes hint at the possibility for general AI to be applied to a wide range of tasks and areas, to perhaps find solutions to problems that we as human experts may not have considered,” Hassabis said.


AlphaGo vanquishes world’s top Go player, marking AI’s superiority over human mind

Chinese Go player Ke Jie slumps during his second match against Google’s artificial intelligence programme AlphaGo in Wuzhen on Thursday on May 25. Photo: Reuters

Chinese Go player Ke Jie puts a stone against Google's artificial intelligence program AlphaGo during their second match at the Future of Go Summit in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, China May 25, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. CHINA OUT.

epa05982947 Chinese Go player Ke Jie (C) speaks beside Demis Hassabis (L), co-founder of Google's artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepMind and Dr. David Silver (R), Research Scientist and AlphaGo Team Lead during the press conference after the match between Ke and Google's artificial intelligence program AlphaGo in which AlphaGo defeated Ke Jie 1:0, during the Future of Go Summit at Wuzhen internet International Conference and Exhibition Center in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, China, 23 May 2017. The summit is held from 23 to 27 May in Wuzhen, and features a three game match between AlphaGo and Ke Jie. EPA/WU HONG

epa05982640 Chinese Go player Ke Jie attends the opening ceremony of the Future of Go summit ahead of a match between Ke Jie and Google's artificial intelligence program AlphaGo at Wuzhen internet international conference and exhibition center in Wuzhen, China's Zhejiang province, 23 May 2017. The summit is held from 23 to 27 May in Wuzhen. EPA/WU HONG

AlphaGo on a smartphone? Chinese brothers plan to put AI in your pocket with start-up based on Cambrian deep-learning processor 

Before we turn into robots, will our smartphones turn into tiny versions of us? Still taken from the 2015 Hollywood movie Ex Machina. Photo: SCMP Pictures

No Caption Available.

AlphaGo wins first match of three over Chinese Go master with ability to surprise

A screen displays the match featuring Chinese Go grand master Ke Jie against Google DeepMind's AlphaGo artificial intelligence programme. The machine won the first of three matches after four and half hours, pulling off several surprise moves. sPhoto: EPA

*** ONE TIME USE ONLY *** HF8GM2 December 22, 2016 - Huai'An, Huai'an, China - Huai'an,CHINA-December 22 2016: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY. CHINA OUT) Chinese go player Ke Jie...Chinese go players Ke Jie, Tan Xiao, Gu Zihao and South Korean go player Pak Yeong-hun attend the semi-final of the 11th Chunlan Cup World Professional Go Championship in Huai'an, east China's Jiangsu Province, December 22nd, 2016. (Credit Image: © SIPA Asia via ZUMA Wire)

A commentator in a media room positions pieces forming a replica of a game between 'Go' player Lee Se-Dol and a Google-developed super-computer, in Seoul on March 13, 2016. A South Korean Go grandmaster scored his first win over a Google-developed supercomputer, in a surprise victory after three humiliating defeats in a high-profile showdown between man and machine. Lee Se-Dol thrashed AlphaGo after a nail-biting match that lasted for nearly five hours -- the fourth of the best-of-five series in which the computer clinched a 3-0 victory on March 12. / AFP PHOTO / Ed Jones

AlphaGo wins second match in series of three with Chinese Go master

World No 1 player Ke Jie said to be ‘out of his league’ in competition considered a benchmark in measuring the encroachment by artificial intelligence on human endeavours

Chinese Go player Ke Jie reacts during his second match against Google's artificial intelligence program AlphaGo at the Future of Go Summit in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, China May 25, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. CHINA OUT. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Chinese Go player Ke Jie suffered defeat in the second match against AlphaGo in the best out of three competition. Photo: Reuters

AlphaGo’s China showdown: why it’s time to embrace artificial intelligence

As Google DeepMind’s programme prepares for its match with Chinese Go grandmaster Ke Jie, is it time to sit back and let the computers take over?

In this March 15, 2016 photo, South Korean professional Go player Lee Sedol reviews the match after finishing the final match of the Google DeepMind Challenge Match against Google's artificial intelligence program, AlphaGo, in Seoul, South Korea. Google's Go-playing computer program again defeated its human opponent in a final match on Tuesday that sealed its 4:1 victory. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

NYK01D:INTERNET-CHESS-MICROSOFT:NEW YORK,20JUN99 - World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov sits in a New York hotel room with a computer June 20. Kasparov who played two historic matches against a supercomputer, will take on chess players from all over the world starting Monday, June 21, by playing a match over the Internet. Chess players will be able to go to Microsoft Corp.'s www.msn.com site to suggest their moves to a team of young experts who will guide the Internet public in the interactive game against the Russian grandmaster. ms/Photo by Jeff Christensen REUTERS

CEO of Google DeepMind Demis Hassabis attends at a press conference after the Google DeepMind Challenge Match between South Korean professional Go player Lee Sedol and Google's artificial intelligence program, AlphaGo, in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, March 9, 2016. Google's computer program AlphaGo defeated its human opponent, South Korean Go champion Lee Sedol, on Wednesday in the first game of a historic five-game match between human and computer.(AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

"Jeopardy!" champions Ken Jennings, left, and Brad Rutter, right, look on as an IBM computer called "Watson" beats them to the buzzer to answer a question during a practice round of the "Jeopardy!" quiz show in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. It's the size of 10 refrigerators, and it swallows encyclopedias whole, but an IBM computer was lacking one thing it needed to battle the greatest champions from the "Jeopardy!" quiz TV show - it couldn't hit a buzzer. But that's been fixed, and on Thursday the hardware and software system named Watson played a competitive practice round against two champions. A "Jeopardy!" show featuring the computer will air in mid-February, 2011. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Participants listen to a recorded speech by British physicist Stephen Hawking on artificial intelligence as his image is seen on a screen at the Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) in Beijing on April 27, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Greg Baker

TVs show Lee Sedol taking on Google DeepMind. Photo: AFP

Lee Sedol, one of the greatest modern players of the ancient board game Go, takes on Google DeepMind in Seoul. He lost the match 4-1. Photo: AFP

Baidu’s AI robot upstaged by Google’s AlphaGo in show down against humans

Google’s artificial intelligence bot DeepMind squared off against South Korea Go player Lee Se-dol (right) and eventually won. This photo shows the fourth showdown between the players during a challenge head in Seoul on March 13, 2016. Photo: Google

***ONE TIME USE ONLY, PLEASE CLEAR THE COPYRIGHTS BEFORE RE-USE - OTUO*** Andrew Ng, Associate Professor at Stanford, Chief Scientist of Baidu and Chairman and Co-Founde of online learning platform Coursera. [15JUN2015 BROADSHEET LIFE]

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Humanity’s most complex game was thought to be the final frontier that takes another decade for machines to conquer. That changed this week with AlphaGo’s 3-0 victory over Ke Jie


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.css-sioo19{color:#c79a00;}New | AlphaGo vanquishes world’s top Go player, marking AI’s superiority over human mind

New | AlphaGo vanquishes world’s top Go player, marking AI’s superiority over human mind