Who's Afraid of the AlphaGo Machine?

Jan 03, 2018

GO is the oldest living board game still being played today.

From a simple beginning, GO iterates into one of the most complex games ever devised by humans.

It involves opposing black and white buttons, placed on a wooden board crisscrossed by black lines, trying to claim more space than your opponent.

The combinations of possible moves exceed the number of atoms in the universe.

It would take a supercomputer millions of years to calculate every move. Therefore, grunt power gives machines no advantage in this game.

It makes chess look like draughts.

What is needed is AI - Artificial Intelligence.

Enter AlphaGo.

If you are Lee Sedol, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Lee Sedol is a level "9-dan" professional Korean Go payer with a high squeaky voice. A modest and humble man, he also decimates anyone who opposes him at GO. He's the Bobby Fischer of GO, without the paranoia.

AlphaGo is an Artificially Intelligent Go-playing machine designed by a team in London.

On March 19th, 2016, Lee sat down in the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul's Gwanghwamun district opposite AlphaGo. Or rather, opposite a programmer from DeepMind, the Unit run by Dr Demis Hassabis in London that developed their AI over 10 years.

If you don't know the story, what do you think happened?

HINT: Neither player won all the matches.

Lee declared he was playing on behalf of humanity. It was estimated that over 80 million people across Asia and the rest of the world watched that first game which - finally - the machine won.

"It" went on to win the second and third games - the entire tournament. But - as it was a best of five, and the winner was now determined - Lee walked into the room for their fourth game looking more relaxed and confident than he had since the start.

It was pandemonium when he won. Yes, he beat AlphaGo. It was like the Terminator was struck down, and humanity lived another day.

AI has a lot of people worried.

Serious, visionary people - like Elon Musk and his mates from high-tech. Today, smart people use AI. They use machines and props and sites that do the grunt work, and some of your thinking.

Facebook is one organisation on the leading edge of AI. And you can access that technology for as little as $10 to jump-start your Alexscovery practice.

Tomorrow, we start a new course in MasterMinders showing you how you can sell AT from Facebook. It's a course for people ready to embrace the future.

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