OK, it’s not looking great for humans in the current who-can-play-board-games-better contest.
On Thursday Google’s DeepMind AlphaGo racked up a second straight win against world champion Go player Lee Se-dol in South Korea.
Mastering Go is a new kind of win for computer systems because the ancient Chinese board game requires more than just calculation; it takes a thinking brain that can learn from experience and calculate moves in real time to win.
Board game champ Lee resigned the second in the five-game matchup after over four hours battling the bot. Moderators watching the game at the Four Seasons praised AlphaGo for moves that were “unusual” and gave the machine an early advantage.
But the second win for Google (GOOGL) isn’t just about computers throwing shade at really great board game players.
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The artificial intelligence has applications for all kinds of useful machine learning. DeepMind could use the tech to perform more high-level tasks, like helping doctors diagnose and treat patients.
It’s all part of a push to get machines to think better and less mechanically.
This is the future of robots:
Researchers at DeepMind have already made their own predictions for a 5-0 sweep in the tournament, which ends March 15.
We’ll see about that, computers.
