New | AI bot and humans in Texas Hold‘Em showdown in Hainan
An artificial intelligence programme called Libratus will play 36,000 hands of Texas Hold’Em poker over five days against a six-strong human team for 2 million yuan in prize money.
Artificial intelligence is poised to take on humans in the game of Texas Hold’Em poker, after having aced people in the games of chess and go, as technology companies race to set the next milestone in the epic contest between machines and humanity.
A computer programme called Libratus, developed by the Carnegie Mellon University, will challenge a six-strong team of China’s top poker players in 36,000 hands of the game over five days in Hainan. The winner of the contest, starting on Thursday, will walk away with bragging rights and 2 million yuan (US$290,000) in prize money.
Lee Kai-fu, the former Greater China president of Google Inc and founder of the venture capital firm Sinovation Ventures, gives humans at most a 10 per cent chance of beating Libratus.
“Even if the human team is lucky enough to win this time, the computer will still be able to beat all human players within a year because machines can keep training themselves at a much faster speed to make progress and to succeed,” said Lee, whose Sinovation is one of the organisers of the showdown in Hainan.
What’s at stake is more than bragging rights. Artificial intelligence is now at the centre of a myriad of real world applications, from facial recognition software and cybersecurity to more futuristic technologies like autonomous self-driving vehicles.
Chinese technology companies have also been piling into artificial intelligence. Baidu Inc., operator of China’s dominant internet search engine, has 1,300 staff in its AI division. It entered its Xiaodu bot in a popular television game show in China called Super Brain, in which it won against human contestants.
