You can call me AI

[Bunbain]

I clicked through on this article posted in Metawatch and wanted to share an excerpt here,

An avid Go player and fan, Zhang learned about the potential of AI eight years ago, when Google’s AlphaGo system defeated Lee Sedol, one of the best players in the world.

“We will never have the same experience as pre-AlphaGo,” Zhang said. “The beauty and the mystery of Go was that you wanted to see how far and how interesting a human’s play could be. Now, the highest achievement would be if you can defeat an AI.”

But what’s more depressing is that in a recent interview with Google, Sedol said that he might not have become a professional Go player if AlphaGo had existed in his youth.

In a blog post, Zhang explained, “Lee Sedol made so much of Go history and was an icon of our time, a role model for me. So to see him say that if he were to choose again, he wouldn’t become a pro—because of AI. Words can’t adequately describe how heartbroken I feel to hear this.”