Game changers

摘要

My two matches against the chess supercomputer Deep Blue in 1996 and 1997 were called "the brain's last stand" and compared with everything from the first moon landing to the Terminator movies. I won the first time and, more famously of course, lost the rematch a year later, at which point IBM shut its project down. Every time a similar challenge hits the headlines my news and social media mentions erupt. The latest flurry is due to the Google-backed artificial intelligence AlphaGo taking on Go champion Lee Se-dol of South Korea after it beat Europe's best player 5 to o. I don't play this ancient Chinese game so am not qualified to predict the outcome next week, but I do know what the result will probably hinge on and what the future holds for Go.