Alphago-----an important step in AI research

In March 2016, an artificial intelligence named Alphago played with the former world champion in go, Lee Sedol. After beating the professional go player Fan Hui, Alphago has gotten many attentions. The competition between Lee and Alphago was probably the battle between human and machine that got the most attentions after the competition between Deepblue and Kasparov. In the match of five games, Alphago won by a tremendous edge. The final score is 4:1. Alphago won 4 of five games while Lee won 1. After this epic battle between human and machine, another battle started a month ago. Alphago was facing the current world No.1 player Ke Jie. Before this battle, Alphago had been playing on the internet for 60 games. With the username "Master", Alphago played rapid go games on the internet with many strong go players, including professional players. Among the 60 games that Alphago played on the internet, it did not lose anyone, proving that humans have no chance to beat AI in the realm of rapid go game. The result of 60-0 shows that Alphago had become very strong, and it gives Ke Jie a tremendous pressure. However, Ke Jie was not in a completely hopeless situation. Ke and Alphago were going to play long games instead of short games. Each player has three hours of thinking time. Therefore, the longer thinking time gave Ke Jie a chance to win the match.

Before the match started, many professionals predicted that Ke Jie will probably lose the match. In the end of the match, Ke lost to Alphago by 0:3. Again, AI won the battle with a big margin. Although, Ke lost the match, he fought strongly and did not give up or show any weakness. There are many moments that go professionals think that Ke had the chance to win. Many professional players even said that the second game of the match was the best game that has ever been played between human and AI. Many players agreed that Ke Jie had given the best performance that can be achieved by the human. The CEO of Deepmind said in the press conference that Ke Jie is the first player who can maintain the equal position with Alphago after 100 moves. He also said that Ke pushed Alphago to the limit in the second game of the match. As a go lover, I also watched the game and the analysis, I was amazed and touched by the performance of Ke Jie. He really deserves all the praise.

To many people, this competition seems to be the battle that decides if tAI is better than humans. However, the real meaning of this match is to test the limit of Alphago. Instead of taking this match as the battle between humans and AI, we should take it as the cooperation between Ke Jie and Deepmind.(the company that develops Alphago) By playing with the strongest player at this time, Deepmind will be able to collect some data and examine the limit of Alphago. Therefore, this match is significant to the development of Alphago. The triumph of Alphago is a milestone of the evolution of AI. The appearance of Alphago shows that the most advanced AI has the ability to analyze and outcompete humans in such complex game like go. In addition to the fact that AI has dominated humans in go, how Alphago plays also amazes professional players. The moves that are chosen by Alphago in the games have changed humans' understanding in go. This tells us an important thing. AI and humans have the similar thinking process, but they think differently. From the battle between Ke Jie and Alphago, we can see the potential of AI. In the future, we may be able to find the answer to the problems that have not been answered. With the help of AI, the development in science and madicine may be taken to the next level.