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Google’s Deepmind AI to have a Go match with world’s new number one player

These days, Google — as well as many other tech giants — is all about Artificial Intelligence. We’ve seen it shown off in many different shapes at its latest I/O conference, but perhaps one of the biggest achievements in the field was a little far from the consumer-world of Allo or the new Google assistant.

After the recent victory, in fact, it will be Google’s Deepmind team to be put again to the test at Go, this time against the world’s new number one player (via Engadget)…

Back in March, the Deepmind team achieved what many experienced in the field of artificial intelligence deemed to be a truly historic moment, both because of the AlphaGo opponent’s prowess and the intrinsic complexity of the game itself.

Mastering the art of Chinese board game Go, Deepmind’s AI-powered computer managed to take on 33-year old, professional champion Lee Sedol and win by four games to one against him, effectively making it the one player to beat.

However, as it appears, this will not represent the highest point of AlphaGo’s short career, as 9th dan Go master Ke Jie, a Chinese 18-year old champion — and current world number one, after beating Sedol himself in a match earlier this year — is now ready to challenge the Google-powered artificial intelligence.

Before Deepmind’s match against Sedol, Jie was reluctant to give AlphaGo a shot, because he didn’t “want it to copy my patterns and learn from me,” albeit also claiming that he could “tell from its performance that it is weaker than me”.

Following Sedol’s defeat, however, Jie agreed to set up a match, which will take place at the 37th World Amateur Go Championship in the Chinese city of Wuxi this weekend.

Jie’s remarks certainly make for an interesting claim, which will make seeing how it fares against AlphaGo — which has now learned from its match against Sedol — all the more interesting.

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Avatar for Edoardo Maggio Edoardo Maggio

Italian. Tech geek, video games, photography and music lover, comics-based movies enthusiast, and a sucker for good design. Amateur photographer (VSCO, 500px), writer and reporter for 9to5Google.


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