AlphaGo
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AlphaGo pushed human Go players to become more creative
A team of researchers studied 5.8 million professional Go move decisions made between 1950 and 2021 and found a dramatic increase in play quality over the last few years.
Human convincingly beats AI at Go with help from a bot
A strong amateur Go player has beat a highly-ranked AI system after exploiting a weakness discovered by a second computer.
DeepMind's latest AI can master games without being told their rules
In 2016, Alphabet's DeepMind came out with AlphaGo, an AI which consistently beat the best human Go players. DeepMind then created AlphaZero, which could play Go, chess and shogi with a single algorithm. DeepMind's latest AI, MuZero, didn't need to be told the rules of go, chess, shogi and a suite of Atari games to master them.
AIs are better gamers than us, but that’s OK
We're only just beginning to scratch the surface of what artificial intelligence is capable of, from medical advancements to movie recommendations. Despite AI being a potential goldmine of help to humanity, even the greatest minds are partial to the odd spout of fear-mongering. The robots are coming to take our jobs, overthrow humanity, enslave us and the like. Skynet is but a dystopian dream at this point in time, but in some ways, AI is already winning. It's beating us at some of our favorite games, from Go to StarCraft II. Machine has begun to best man, but that's a good thing.
AI is better at bluffing than professional gamblers
The act of gambling on games of chance has been around for as long as the games themselves. For as long as there's been money to be made wagering on the uncertain outcomes of these events, bettors have been leveraging mathematics to give them an edge on the house. As gaming has moved from bookies and casinos into the digital realm, gamblers are beginning to use modern computing techniques, especially AI and machine learning (ML), to increase their odds of winning. But that betting blade cuts both ways, as researchers work to design artificial intelligences capable of beating professional players at their own game -- and even out-wagering sportsbooks.
Pretty sure Google's new talking AI just beat the Turing test
So that whole Turing test metric, wherein we gauge how human-like an AI system appears to be based on its ability to mimic our vocal affectations? At the 2018 I/O developers conference Tuesday, Google utterly dismantled it. The company did so by having its AI-driven Assistant book a reservation. On the phone. With a live, unsuspecting human on the other end of the line. And it worked flawlessly.
This year we took small, important steps toward the Singularity
We won't have to wait until 2019 for our Blade Runner future, mostly because artificially intelligent robots already walk, roll and occasionally backflip among us. They're on our streets and in our stores. Some have wagged their way into our hearts while others have taken a more literal route. Both in civilian life and the military battlespace, AI is adopting physical form to multiply the capabilities of the humans it serves. As robots gain ubiquity, friction between these bolt buckets and we meat sacks is sure to cause issues. So how do we ensure that the increasingly intelligent machines we design share our ethical values while minimizing human-robot conflict? Sit down, Mr. Asimov.
Google's AlphaGo AI can teach itself to master games like chess
Google's DeepMind team has already advanced its AlphaGo AI to dominate Go without human input, but now the system is clever enough to master other board games without intervention. Researchers have developed a more generalized system for AlphaGo Zero that can train itself to achieve "superhuman" skill in chess, Shogi (a Japanese classic) and other game types knowing only the rules, all within less than a day. It doesn't need example games or other references.
Google's AlphaGo AI no longer requires human input to master Go
Google's AlphaGo already beat us puny humans to become the best at the Chinese board game of Go. Now, it's done with humans altogether. DeepMind, the Alphabet subsidiary behind the artificial intelligence, just announced AlphaGo Zero. The latest iteration of the computer program is the most advanced yet, outperforming all previous versions. It's also different from its predecessors in one uniquely significant way: Whereas the older AlphaGos trained in Go from thousands of human amateur and professional games, Zero foregoes the need for human insight altogether. Like the unpopular kid in class, it will learn simply by playing alone, and against itself.
Google's AlphaGo retires from competition
To say that AlphaGo had a great run in the competitive Go scene would be an understatement: it has just defeated the world's number 1 Go player, Ke Jie, in a three-part match. Now that it has nothing left to prove, the AI is hanging up its boots and leaving the world of competitive Go behind. AlphaGo's developers from Google-owned DeepMind will now focus on creating advanced general algorithms to help scientists find elusive cures for diseases, conjure up a way to dramatically reduce energy consumption and invent new revolutionary materials.
Google's AlphaGo is the best Go player in the world
In the latest round of man versus machine, machine has come out on top. Google's AlphaGo beat Go world champion Ke Jie for a second time in as many days, taking an unassailable lead in the three-part series. By rights, Deepmind's AI can now be considered the world's best Go player, having beaten the game's two biggest names in a little under a year.
UC Berkeley researchers teach computers to be curious
When you played through Super Mario Bros. or Doom for the very first time, chances are you didn't try to speedrun the entire game but instead started exploring -- this despite not really knowing what to expect around the next corner. It's that same sense of curiosity, the desire to screw around in a digital landscape just to see what happens, that a team of researchers at UC Berkeley have imparted into their computer algorithm. And it could drastically advance the field of artificial intelligence.
Google’s AlphaGo AI defeats the world’s best human Go player
Google's AI star, AlphaGo, wins again. It bested Ke Jie, the world's best Go player, by just half a point -- the closest margin possible. After the match, Google's DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis explained that this was how AlphaGo was programmed: to maximise its winning chances, rather than the winning margin. This latest iteration of the AI player, nicknamed Master, apparently uses 10 times less computational power than its predecessor that beat Lee Sedol, working from a single PC connected to Google's cloud server.
Google's AI will take on the world's top Go player next month
It's been a busy year for Google Deepmind. You might remember AlphaGo resoundingly beating Go grandmaster Lee Sedol by four games to one and secretly schooling some of the world's best Go players online, but the team has also found time to help Britain's national health service treat patients and arm its computer with new tricks to help it learn faster and "remember" previous knowledge. AlphaGo can now justifiably be considered one of the world's best Go players, but the Deepmind team can't make a bonafide claim until its AI has beaten the world number one: 19-year-old Chinese player Ke Jie. Deepmind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis has now confirmed that after months of speculation, the match is on.
Korean Go body to ban smartphones thanks to Google's AI
South Korean Go players will be banned from using smartphones during official tournaments in the future, and it's all thanks to Google's AlphaGo AI. The Korea Times reports that the Korea Baduk Association -- baduk being the local name for Go -- is currently drafting new rules that will outlaw smartphone use in matches. While the organization is fully aware you can't carry AlphaGo around in your pocket at the moment, it's preempting a time when certain AI tools that can give players a competitive edge do become available on smartphones.
Google's DeepMind AI has been secretly schooling online Go players
Over the past year, Google's DeepMind AlphaGo AI has taken on (and defeated) worldwide Go masters in a series of high-profile matches. But in a sly move similar to a game-playing Turing test, DeepMind recently unleashed AlphaGo on some unsuspecting online Go players, thoroughly trouncing them in the process.
AI was everywhere in 2016
At the Four Seasons hotel in South Korea, AlphaGO stunned grandmaster Lee Sodol at the complex and highly intuitive game of Go. Google's artificially intelligent system defeated the 18-time world champion in a string of games earlier this year. Backed by the company's superior machine-learning techniques, AlphaGo had processed thousands and thousands of Go moves from previous human-to-human games to develop its own ability to think strategically.
The next wave of AI is rooted in human culture and history
Understanding humans is essential to the design and experience of a technology. For decades, major corporations have turned to social scientists for insight into human behavior, culture and history. At Intel, Genevieve Bell, a prominent Australian anthropologist with a Ph.D. from Stanford University, has been tracking societal trends across the world to help build technologies that are fine-tuned to the needs of the people who will interact with them.
Google's Deepmind AI will play Go against the world number one
After it beat Korean grandmaster Lee Sedol by four games to one earlier this year, Google's AlphaGo has become the Go player to beat. Even while the series was still being played, 18-year-old Chinese Go champion Ke Jie remarked that he could beat Google's Deepmind computer. Now he has his chance. At the 37th World Amateur Go Championship in Chinese city of Wuxi this weekend, a spokesman for the Chinese Go Association revealed that representatives have been in contact with the team behind AlphaGo and will set up a match before the end of the year.
Google built a processor just for AI
Google is no stranger to building hardware for its data centers, but it's now going so far as to design its own processors. The internet giant has revealed the Tensor Processing Unit, a custom chip built expressly for machine learning. As Google doesn't need high precision for artificial intelligence tasks, the TPU is focused more on raw operations per second than anything else: It's an "order of magnitude" faster in AI than conventional processors at similar energy levels. It's space-efficient too, fitting into the hard drive bays in data center racks.
