The first game of Baduk, or Go, as its known in the rest of the world... of the much anticipated
'match of the century' between Korean grandmaster Lee Se-dol and artificial intelligence super
computer Alpha Go... wrapped up after about three hours and thirty minutes, with machine
beating human.
But does this mean artificial intelligence outsmarted humans?
Lee Ji-won has more.
After three hours and a half, the first round of the long awaited Go match between Grandmaster
Lee Se-dol and Google's AlphaGo ended, with the machine being declared the winner.
As Lee Se-dol saw that the game could no longer be turned to his favor, he did not make the
187th move, and forfeited instead.
The game was a tight competition from the beginning... and AlphaGo even made a number
of moves that professional Go players would not normally make.
But a critical mistake by Lee Se-dol on the 127th move, turned the tables for the machine.
"I think the mistake I made earlier led to my defeat...
Even when I made the mistake, I didn't think I was going to lose the game... so today's
game was a big surprise for me.
I didn't expect AlphaGo to play this well."
But it wasn't an easy game for the machine either.
"I was sitting in the technical room, watching the stats of what AlphaGo was doing and how
it was processing the positions and it was stretched to its limit all the way through
the game in terms of every component of AlphaGo being pushed to its maximum using its value
networks, policy networks and such.
Everything had to come together and it was really pushed to its limit."
Both sides thanked each other for the opportunity and expressed their mutual respect for each
other.
"Huge respect for Lee Se-dol and his amazing skills.
He's famous for fighting in creative style and I think that made this game extremely
exciting and very tense.
We are very excited about this historic moment and we are very pleased with how AlphaGo performed."
"But it might be too early to say that artificial intelligence has outsmarted human intelligence,
as they still have 4 more games to play.
Giving us all the more reason to wait for Thursday's winner.
Lee Ji-won, Arirang News."