Lee Sedol [Yonhap Photo]
South Korean Go grandmaster Lee Sedol has expressed his strong desire for winning against Google's artificial intelligence but he clearly ruled out a possible return match with an insentient machine.
In a historic tournament shown live on the Internet in March, Google's program AlphaGo scored a 4-1 victory against Lee, one of the world's best players in the ancient Chinese board game. The event has fueled global interest in artificial intelligence (AI).
"I never want to face it again. I can say paradoxically, however, that AlphaGo is an opponent I wish to challenge," Lee said Sunday at a forum in the Chinese port city of Tianjin.
He said he was surprised at AlphaGo's unexpected and creative play in the match in Seoul but simply defined it as a machine with no human "intuition and insight".
"I was shocked by the fact that AlphaGo can play, based only on calculation without intuition or insight," Lee said.
He said he had a hard time because of the program's "unwavering" approach. "AlphaGo's problem was that it did not realize it's a Go game." He was not the only person who has been shocked, but the Go community around the world was shaken because AI scored an overwhelming victory.
Lee was positive about AlphaGo's usefulness in training young Go players. "I am not sure if AlphaGo will be useful in other areas, but I'm positive about using it for training in Go."
Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.
