Google's AlphaGo to Take Up On China's Ke Jie in May

The celebrated Chinese Go master, Ke Jie, plans to play Google's AlphaGo a set of three games at Wuzhen, Chekiang Province, late in May, announced DeepMind, April 4. Ke Jie is reputed to be the current champion of the game who reportedly declared in March "AlphaGo had trounced Lee Sedol but not me".

This is to be the first set of games AlphaGo plays against professional Go players since its landslide victory over Korea's Lee Sedol.

The showdown takes place on May 23 through 27 to highlight the "Future of Go Summit" in Wuzhen, Chekiang Province. Google's CEO Demis Hassabis stated in his blog that there remain plenty to learn from the contests between top Go players and AI, adding:

"Our idea of holding a 5-day fiesta of Go vs. AI is an effort to seek such possibilities."

AlphaGo will also play against pairs and a team of five Chinese masters.

Currently, five of the top nine Go masters are Chinese, three Korean and one Japanese.  Ke Jie tops the list followed by Park Junghwan of Korea and Mi Yuting of China. Park and Mi ousted the Japanese AI DeepZengo in the World Go Championships in March.

The list goes on with Lian Xiao, Zhou Ruiyang and Tuo Jiaxi of China for five, six and seven. Shin Jinseo of Korea ranks eighth atop Iyama Yuta ninth.

Ke Jie, 9 dan, leads the world of Go at age 19. In January 2017, however, he lost an unofficial match over the internet against "Master" or a revised version of AlphaGo. The scheduled match in May is, in fact, his attempt for revenge.

Interestingly, the Chinese master Zhou Ruiyang, 9 dan ranking seventh in the world, has this to say:

"AlphaGo frees our thinking. It shows us no move is impossible. Everyone is now trying to play in all possible styles never tried before." (Nathan Shiga) 

Source: Nikkei