South Korean professional Go player Lee Sedol, center, poses for the media with Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet, right, and CEO of Google DeepMind Demis Hassabis, left, after a press conference ahead of the Google DeepMind Challenge Match in Seoul, South Korea, March 8, 2016. (Photo provided to China News Service)
The victory of AlphaGo, an artificial intelligence (AI) software, over the world's top go player Lee Sedol during Wednesday's game has caused heated debate and grave concern over whether AI will triumph over human brains and eventually conquer the world.
During an interview before the game, Lee said he believed human beings are much stronger than AI, but there will come a day when AI overcomes the human brain.
Many experts believe the most interesting and potentially dangerous aspect of AlphaGo is its ability to learn. It has been through more than 30 million games of go and is continually improving itself.
Demis Hassabis, the creator of AlphaGo, said he doesn't believe AI will endanger human life. AlphaGo may help bring the human ability to play go to the next level someday when it becomes stronger, he said, but if the program were able to teach itself other things using the Internet it would be worth caution.
Chinese go lovers also voiced their concern online. "Computers may overcome human beings in the future, but they can never have emotions to understand the artistry of the game," said user firebird323 on Baidu Tieba, one of China's most popular social network service.
However, some experts view the defeat the other way around.
Liu Cixin, the author of Hugo Award winner "The Three Body Problem", told Xinhua that AI has the possibility to outperform human intelligence in the future, but it has many enormous obstacles to overcome on the path to doing so. "Some obstacles may never be cracked," he said.
AlphaGo was created by man, reflecting the tremendous speed of science development, thus should be regarded as a victory for humankind rather than an insult to its dignity, said Wang Yongtian, director of School of Information and Electronics under Beijing Institute of Technology.
The victory of AlphaGo represents a fundamental change for the AI industry as it is now able to judge, think and learn like human beings, said Qu Daokui, president of China Robot Industry Alliance.
The AI industry has been listed in China's 13th Five-year plan (2016-2020), as a highly-valued sector that should be developed as a key strategic project, Qu said.
As for the game itself, Chinese go experts including Hua Xueming, the leader of China national go team, believe Lee lost the first round due to emotion and it should not be regarded as a comprehensive victory for machines.
