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Google Deepmind artificial intelligence beats world's best Go player Lee Sedol in landmark game

South Korea’s Lee Sedol, the world’s top Go player, bows during a news conference ahead of matches against Google’s artificial intelligence program AlphaGo, in Seoul, South Korea, March 8, 2016 / REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

Go depends mostly on intuition, since it is so complex — and the victory shows that computers are well on their way to learning the powers that we thought belonged only to humans

A computer programme has won a game of Go against the world's best player, in a huge breakthrough for artificial intelligence.

Google’s AlphaGo computer has beaten South Korean human and Go champion Lee Sedol in the first of five matches.

The Deepmind-based computer's victory in the complex Chinese game marks a major event in the development of artificial intelligence — the game depends hugely in intuition, since there are so many possibilities, and so mastery of the game was previously thought to be a human skill.

The game is said to be one of the most creative and complicated in the world, and usually takes years for even humans to master.

In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history

In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history

  • 1/7 Boston Dynamics

    Boston Dynamics describes itself as 'building dynamic robots and software for human simulation'. It has created robots for DARPA, the US' military research company

  • 2/7 Google's self-driving cars

    Google has been using similar technology to build self-driving cars, and has been pushing for legislation to allow them on the roads

  • 3/7 DARPA Urban Challenge

    The DARPA Urban Challenge, set up by the US Department of Defense, challenges driverless cars to navigate a 60 mile course in an urban environment that simulates guerilla warfare

  • 4/7 Deep Blue beats Kasparov

    Deep Blue, a computer created by IBM, won a match against world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. The computer could evaluate 200 million positions per second, and Kasparov accused it of cheating after the match was finished

  • 5/7 Watson wins Jeopardy

    Another computer created by IBM, Watson, beat two champions of US TV series Jeopardy at their own game in 2011

  • 6/7 Apple's Siri

    Apple's virtual assistant for iPhone, Siri, uses artificial intelligence technology to anticipate users' needs and give cheeky reactions

  • 7/7 Kinect

    Xbox's Kinect uses artificial intelligence to predict where players are likely to go, an track their movement more accurately

AI experts had previously thought that it would take another ten years of development for computers to get good enough at the game to beat a human. But then AlphaGo beat the European champion last year, and now appears to be on track for beating Lee, the world's best Go player.

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