Answer: The ancient Chinese board game “Go” was invented long before there were 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.
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, is different.
The game requires intuition, strategising and 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 which are unique to human intelligence.
This week, though, a computer called Alpha Go 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 the “technological singularity”, the moment when artificial intelligence becomes capable of self-improvement and learns faster than humans can control or understand.
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