Spectators watch a video screen as Go player Ke Jie plays a match against Google’s artificial intelligence program, AlphaGo, during the Future of Go Summit in Wuzhen in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province, Tuesday, May 23, 2017. Ke Jie, the world’s top-ranked Go player, started a three-round showdown on Tuesday against AlphaGo, which beat a South Korean Go master in a five-round showdown last year. Peng Peng AP Photo
WUZHEN, CHINA
A computer that plays go has started a match against China’s No. 1 player in a test of whether artificial intelligence can master one of the last games that machines have yet to dominate.
The three-game match between Ke Jie and Google’s AlphaGo that started Tuesday is part of a five-day event in a town west of Shanghai that pits the computer against a group of top-ranked Chinese players.
Computers mastered chess and other games years ago. Players had expected it to be at least another decade before they could beat human champions at go due to its complexity and reliance on intuition, but AlphaGo surprised them in 2015 by beating a European champion. Last year, it defeated a top-ranked South Korean.
