AlphaGo, Google-owned DeepMind’s virtual Go champion had previously taken on and defeated one of the top ranked human players in the world. Now, Google plans to progress further, and explore the AI-human interaction dynamic. For the same, Google has partnered with the China Go Association and the Chinese government to host a competition, where they can determine if AlphaGo can take on the very best human Go player in the entire world. Shi Yue, 9 Dan Professional, World Champion comments, “AlphaGo’s game last year transformed the industry of Go and its players.”
The “Future of Go Summit” in Wuzhen will showcase some of China’s top Go players, and AI researchers from China and Google. The event will be held on May 23-27, and has been designed to test the upper limits of Artificial Intelligence. This will also allow the human players to study the unusual strategies AlphaGo has put into play, in the age-old game. “AlphaGo’s lay make us feel freer, and no move is impossible to play anymore. Now, everyone is trying to play in a style that hasn’t been tried before,” remarks Zhou Ruiyang, another 9 Dan Professional, World Champion.
The event will feature a variety of game formats and post-game analyses. The five-day festival for Go and AI will include three special match variants. In one of the variants, professional Chinese Go players will face off against one another in partnership with an AlphaGo AI teammate, alternating moves between human and computer players, while the second format will put a team of humans working in concert against AlphaGo. In the last format, AlphaGo will finally take on Ke Jie, the top-ranked Go player in the world.
Piggybacking is a forum on the Go festival hosting AI experts from across China, to discuss about AlphaGo’s progress, its supporting technologies, and its potential applications in helping solve real world challenges. The event will also witness a series of talks on the future of Go and AI.
The most interesting facet of this event would be the matches. It’s interesting to see how both humans and AlphaGo react to one another, given that the strategy must consider intervening moves made by their opposite number. “The combination of AlphaGo’s machine learning and Go itself, which is an ancient cultural treasure, will be amazing to see.” Extols Yue.
