Google AlphaGo AI system defeated World’s best player of Go

On Tuesday, Google AlphaGo AI has defeated the world’s best player in the ancient Chinese board game, Go. Google DeepMind’s AI system, AlphaGo has successfully defeated Ke Jie in the first of three matches it will be playing against him. As per the Google events page, AlphaGo will be playing against a team with five world’s top-ranked Go players.

AlphaGo works in a similar way as the human brain. Its design consists of two sets of deep neural networks containing millions of connections, much like the synaptic connections between the brain cells. The AI has already played millions of games against itself by following some initial programming.

Last year, AlphaGo succeeded in defeating another world class player of Go. This was considered as one of the major achievements in the history of AI. Comparatively, Go is much harder than chess. A player can make more potential moves at any point, so it becomes very difficult to predict the next best move.

With the victory of AlphaGo, we can certainly say that AI will not only be driving cars, operating smart homes, but it will also help humans to solve complex scientific, technical, and medical problems.

This is not the first time a computer has defeated humans in games. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer defeated the world champion Garry Kasparov at chess. AlphaGo is much smarter than Deep blue because it is using reinforcement learning, a technique which makes systems smarter through trial and error.

Match One: Ke Jie & AlphaGo