<span>The answers are the following:
1. The ancient Chinese board game
Go was invented long before there was any writing to record its rules. A game from the impossibly distant past has now brought us closer to a moment that once seemed part of an impossibly distant future: a time when machines are cleverer than we are.
2. </span>For years, Go was considered the last redoubt against the march of computers. Machines might win at chess, draughts, Othello,
three dimensional noughts and crosses, Monopoly, bridge and poker. Go, though,
was different.
The game requires intuition, strategising, character reading, along with vast numbers of moves and permutations. According to legend, it was invented by a Chinese emperor to teach his subjects balance and patience, qualities unique to human intelligence.
3. This week a computer called AlphaGo defeated the world’s best player of Go. It did so by “learning” the game, crunching through 30 million positions from recorded matches, reacting and anticipating. It evolved as a player and taught itself.
That single game of Go marks a milestone on the road to “technological singularity”, the moment when artificial intelligence becomes capable of self-improvement and learns faster than humans can control or understand.
