How Google's AlphaGo Beat a Go World Champion

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 major South Korean television networks are 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.

The game room itself is spare: a table, two black leather chairs, some cameras. Three officials presiding over the match sit in the back. Across from Lee sits Aja Huang, one of AlphaGo’s lead programmers; and beside him is a computer monitor that displays AlphaGo’s move choices. Huang’s job is to physically place AlphaGo’s pieces on the board. AlphaGo itself is not any one machine—it’s a piece of distributed software supported by a team of more than 100 scientists.


Tonight, Lee Sedol is supported by one 33-year-old human brain and approximately 12 ounces of coffee.

Most people are betting on Lee to win.

* * *

At its core, the game of Go, which originated in China more than 2,500 years ago, is an abstract war simulation. Players start with a completely blank board and place black and white stones, one at a time, to surround territory. Once placed, stones do not move, and they’re removed only if they’re “killed”—that is, surrounded completely by the opponent’s stones. And so the game goes—black stone, white stone, black stone, white stone—until the board is covered in an intricate tapestry of black and white.

The rules of Go are simple and take only a few minutes to learn, but the possibilities are seemingly endless. The number of potential legal board positions is:

208,168,199,381,979,984,699,478,633,344,862,770,286,522,

453,884,530,548,425,639,456,820,927,419,612,738,015,378,

525,648,451,698,519,643,907,259,916,015,628,128,546,089,

888,314,427, 129,715,319,317,557,736,620,397,247,064,840,

935.



That number—which is greater than the number of atoms in the universe—was only determined in early 2016. Because there are so many directions any given game can move in, Go is a notoriously difficult game for computers to play. It has often been called the “Holy Grail” of artificial intelligence.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/03/the-invisible-opponent/475611/

structure of lead:

Who- AlphaGo and Lee Sedol

When- March 19, 2016

Where- Gwanghwamun, Seoul

What-compete Go

key words:

1.go 圍棋

2.artificial-intelligence人工智慧

3.tune in指收聽某頻道或是指觀賞欣賞

4.livestream現場直播

5.adjacent room相鄰房

6.commentator評論員

7.monitor監測器

8.distribute分配

9.bet賭注

10.core指核心或是事物的中心

11.simulation模擬

12.intricate錯綜複雜的

13.tapestry掛毯(我查不到12+13合起來的意思)

14.notoriously有名地

15.holy grail聖杯;指至高無上難以達成的目標