Alpha–beta pruning

“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game”. 柯洁 (Kē Jié) (right) and Lee Sedol (이세돌) (left) shake hands after or before their Go match in Jeju Island, South Korea. Photo: sports.sina.com.cn.

Edna, we can breathe a sigh of relief that we’ve finally got rid of him, maybe

Bad news for 柯洁 (Kē Jié) (pictured above, left), who apparently lost to the South Korean Lee Sedol (이세돌) (pictured below, centre) the crucial Go match they played today at Haevichi Hotel & Resort in Jeju Island, South Korea. All photos: ORO.

Algorithms on Sky

On March 19, 2016, the strongest Go player in the world, Lee Sedol, sits down for a game against Google DeepMind’s artificial-intelligence program, AlphaGo. They’re at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun district, and it’s a big deal: Most every major South Korean television network is carrying the game. In China, 60 million people are tuning in. For the English-speaking world, the American Go Association and DeepMind are running an English-language livestream on YouTube, and 100,000 people are watching. A few hundred members of the press are in adjacent rooms, watching the game alongside expert commentators. [Read more].

• Christopher Moyer, How Google’s AlphaGo Beat a Go World Champion, The Atlantic, March 29, 2016

Tron: Legacy

Seoul, March 9 (Reuters) – Google’s AlphaGo computer program on Wednesday won the first of a series of five matches against one of the world’s best players of the complex board game, Go, marking a new milestone in the development of artificial intelligence (AI). South Korean professional Go player Lee Sedol, an 18-time international title winner, conceded defeat in a match broadcast live, with one Youtube stream watched by tens of thousands of people worldwide, and domestic cable gave frequent updates. AlphaGo, built by Google subsidiary DeepMind, made history in October, by becoming the first computer program ever to beat a human professional player at the ancient Asian board game. [Read more].

• Google’s AlphaGo AI Program Defeats One Of World’s Best “Go” Players, The Huffington Post, March 9, 2016

AlphaGo vs. Lee Sedol
Handout via Getty Images