Читать книгу The Digital War - Winston Ma - Страница 33

In May 2017, the Chinese media was abuzz with reports about a historical match of the Go chess game (weiqi). It was a best-of-three match between Chinese player Ke Jie, the world's No.1 ranked player and world champion, and the AI-enabled computer Go program called AlphaGo, designed by the DeepMind Lab of the US internet giant Google. The match turned out to be one of China's most talked-about news events in 2017, attracting hundreds of millions of views on social media.

For many, the Wuzhen showdown was ripe with suspense and symbolism: uman versus machine; tradition versus modern; intuition versus algorithm; East versus West. Who would prevail? (See the “Match Impossible” box.)

In the end, a tearful Ke Jie became the hallmark image of this historic match. After losing 0–3 to AlphaGo, Ke Jie took off his glasses and wiped his eyes, the sound of his distress filled the room in which he had fought and lost. Subsequently, AlphaGo went on to defeat a team of five top Chinese professionals in a demonstration game in which they were allowed to lay down variations on a board and discuss among themselves, showing that even collective human minds couldn't beat the machine.