American Go E-Journal » Korea

Lee Sedol defeats AlphaGo in masterful comeback – Game 4
Go Game Guru

South Korean Gets ‘Priceless’ Victory Over Computer in Go Match
New York Times

After Three Losses, Master Go Player Scores A Win Against Computer
NPR

Go Grandmaster Lee Sedol Grabs Consolation Win Against Google’s AI
Wired

Go champion Lee Se-dol strikes back to beat Google’s DeepMind AI for first time
The Verge

Go Champion Beats AlphaGo Software on Fourth Try
Wall Street Journal

Go champion notches first victory against Google computer
Financial Times

In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future?
The New Yorker

Is Artificial Intelligence Being Oversold?
Scientific American

Seventeen people attended a go house-party on Friday evening to watch the third game in the Lee Sedol – AlphaGo match. Members of the San Diego Go Club and the UCSD Go club gathered at the SDGC president’s home to try to root the human on to victory. “It was almost like a go sports bar,” reports  San Diego Go Club President Ted Terpstra, “with two big-screen TVs, a couple of Macs, iPads and a bevy of cell phones all tuned to the action. The upstairs’ TV was turned on to the DeepMind YouTube analysis by Chris Garlock and Michael Redmond 9P while downstairs some were watching the AGA YouTube channel featuring Andrew Jackson and Cho Hyeyeon 9P. Gobans were scattered around flat surfaces so that the spectators could look at variations during the match. Pizza and pop supplied by the American Go Association added to the party atmosphere. Play was well past the four-hour mark when Lee Sedol resigned and lost the  game and the match. The last of the disappointed and weary group ambled out at 12:30 a.m. PST.”
photo by Ted Terpstra

AlphaGo posted a second straight win against Lee Sedol 9P on Thursday in Seoul. “Yesterday I was surprised but today it’s more than that — I am speechless,” said Lee in the post-game press conference. “I admit that it was a very clear loss on my part. From the very beginning of the game I did not feel like there was a point that I was leading.” DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis was “speechless” too. “I think it’s testament to Lee Sedol’s incredible skills,” he said. “We’re very pleased that AlphaGo played some quite surprising and beautiful moves, according to the commentators, which was amazing to see.”

The complex, tense game ran nearly five hours and appeared to offer validation of AlphaGo’s evaluative ability, the main roadblock to proficiency for previous go programs. Hassabis said that AlphaGo was confident in victory from the midway point of the game, even though the professional commentators couldn’t tell which player was ahead.

Lee, the winner of 18 world championships, must now win all three remaining games to win the million-dollar prize.

Click here for the Game 2 commentary by Michael Redmond 9p with American Go E-Journal Managing Editor Chris Garlock. The third game in the 5-game Lee Sedol-AlphaGo match will be Saturday, March 12, (Friday night 8p PST, 11p EST). The match will be livestreamed on DeepMind’s YouTube channel with commentary by Redmond and Garlock.
photo courtesy Handout/Getty Images 

Google’s AI Wins First Game in Historic Match With Go Champion
Wired

Master of Go Board Game Is Walloped by Google Computer Program
New York Times

Google’s software beats human Go champion in first match
Washington Post

Google’s DeepMind AI makes history by defeating Go champion Lee Se-dol
The Telegraph

Google’s DeepMind defeats legendary Go player Lee Se-dol in historic victory
The Verge

Google’s AlphaGo AI defeats human in first game of Go contest
The Guardian

Google’s AlphaGo Wins First Match Against Go Grandmaster Lee Sedol
Gadgets 360

Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo beats Go champion Lee Sedol in AI milestone in Seoul
CNBC

It’s 1-0 to AlphaGo! Google’s DeepMind computer BEATS human champion Lee Sedol in the first of five battles
MailOnline

‘I’m in shock!’ How an AI beat the world’s best human at Go
New Scientist

photo by AFP

AlphaGo scored a stunning win against Lee Sedol 9P in the first game of the historic match between Google Deep Mind’s AI and the world’s top professional go player, forcing Lee to resign in just 186 moves. “#AlphaGo WINS!!!! We landed it on the moon,” tweeted DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis after the game. “So proud of the team!! Respect to the amazing Lee Sedol too.” At a jam-packed post-game press conference, Lee admitted “I was so surprised. Actually, I never imagined that I would lose. It’s so shocking.” Cho Hanseung 9p said that “AlphaGo is much stronger than before, when it played against Fan Hui 2p!” Click here to see the English game commentary by Michael Redmond 9P with Chris Garlock on the Google Deepmind YouTube Channel.

The match began on Wednesday, March 9, at the Four Seasons Hotel, in Seoul, Korea. Lee is playing for one million dollars and, perhaps more importantly, the pride of countless humans around the world who don’t yet wish to see computers triumph in the ancient board game go. DeepMind, on the other hand, seek to test the abilities of their machine and make another step along the road towards a general purpose learning algorithm.

Game two of the match is scheduled to take place Thursday March 10 (local time; see below for US details) and Lee said “I am looking forward to tomorrow.”

Includes reporting by Go Game Guru; click here for their full report, photos and a game record.
The second game in the Lee Sedol-AlphaGo match will be Wednesday, March 9, 8p PST (11p EST). The match will be livestreamed on DeepMind’s YouTube channel with English commentary by Michael Redmond 9p with American Go E-Journal Managing Editor Chris Garlock.

The much anticipated five game match between Lee Sedol 9P and Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo begins this week, on Wednesday, March 9 (March 8 for American viewers). Here is the match schedule, along with details of how you can watch and timezone conversions, courtesy Go Game Guru.
The first game in the Lee Sedol-AlphaGo match will be Tuesday, March 8, 8p PST (11p EST). The match will be livestreamed on DeepMind’s YouTube channel with English commentary by Michael Redmond 9p with American Go E-Journal Managing Editor Chris Garlock.

“The winner here, no matter who wins, is humanity,” said Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt at Tuesday’s press conference launching the Google Deep Mind Challenge Match between Google’s AlphaGo and world champion Lee Sedol 9P. Alphabet is the parent company of Google. Hundreds of journalists crowded into the 6th-floor ballroom at the Four Seasons in downtown Seoul. Camera flashes exploded as Schmidt took the stage to proclaim that “This is a great day for humanity. Humans will be smarter, the world will be a better place.” Deep Mind CEO Demis Hassabis called go “The most elegant game humans have ever invented.” Hassabis, a go player himself, noted that because of go’s complexity, “It’s been a longstanding challenge for the AI community to master this game.” Lee Sedol, who a few weeks ago confidently predicted he would defeat AlphaGo, adopted a more circumspect approach this time. “Playing against a machine is very different from an actual human opponent,” the world’s Number 1 told the BBC. “Normally, you can sense your opponent’s breathing, their energy. And lots of times you make decisions which are dependent on the physical reactions of the person you’re playing against. With a machine, you can’t do that.” Indeed, asked about AlphaGo’s strengths, Hassabis sais that “AlphaGo will never get tired and it won’t be intimidated, unlike a human opponent.” Even so, Hassabis said, “We’re many decades away from a real human AI; we’re still playing games.” And Sedol turned a bit philosophical at the end of the press conference, quietly saying that “If I get defeated it might be negative for go, but it is inevitable in this modern life. But it won’t destroy the value of go itself.”
– report/photo by Chris Garlock; photo: (l-r): Hassabis, Lee & Schmidt