We’re all familiar with chess-playing computers
- Deep Blue famously beat Garry Kasparov 20
years ago.
But, the ancient game of Go, known as Baduk
in Korea is considered a more significant
challenge for Artificial Intelligence because
the overwhelming complexity makes it an "intuitive"
game.
Well, a new program has beat that challenge...
and a huge match of Go is expected to take
place between the world's long-time Baduk
grandmaster Lee Se-dol and AlphaGO, a computer
program developed by Google.
Kim Ji-yeon reports on why such development
makes it a milestone in AI.
Up until now, the ancient game of Go or Baduk
has been singled out as a board game that
computers couldn't crack due to its complexity.
The rules are simple though, which is to gain
the most territory of the grid by placing
or capturing black or white stones... which
can be placed in an almost indefinite number
of combinations.
But this belief may soon change.
U.S. tech giant Google says its computer has
a 50-50 chance to beat some of the strongest
Baduk players in the world... when equipped
with an Artificial Intelligence program called
AlphaGO, developed by Google's London-based
company DeepMind.
Google says AlphaGO is trained to learn like
a human being... by observing others play
and repeatedly predicting the outcome of each
game... as well as by using its "instincts"
to make the best move in uncharted situations.
This gut instinct is what makes AlphaGO more
advanced compared to previous software programs
including IBM's chess supercomputer Deep Blue,
which beat Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov
in 1997.... by learning to use a general-purpose
algorithm to interpret the game's patterns.
Google says AlphaGO has already defeated European
Baduk champion Fan Hui, five times out of
five tournaments in October.
Co-founder of DeepMind, Demis Hassabis says
the ultimate goal of AlphaGO's development
is to apply it to solve real world problems
in the future.
"After getting a CT scan, or brain image and
you have it to process that image and recognize
something what's wrong in that image and help
work out what the best kind of treatment schedule
should be."
The verdict will be out... as AlphaGO is to
play against a decades-long Korean champion
and Baduk grandmaster Lee Se-dol in Seoul
this March.
The winning side will be rewarded a million
U.S. dollars as prize money... but whatever
the outcome,... one thing's for sure is that
the upcoming match will be a milestone in
the development of Artificial Intelligence.
Kim Jiyeon, Arirang News.
