Remember the late 90′s, when IBM’s Deep Blue computer beat former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov? It is humans versus computers all over again, but this time the battle ground is an ancient Chinese board game called Go.Google’s DeepMind AlphaGo AI will battle it out against Korean champion Lee Se-dol in a five-match series. All five matches will be live streamed on YouTube, and here’s how you can watch them.
The first match has already kicked off in Seoul, Korea and you can watch it live in the YouTube video embedded below. The next four matches are scheduled for March 10, March 12, March 13 and March 15. The matches kick off at 1PM Korea Standard Time or 9:30AM IST.
Go is essentially an ancient Chinese game believed to be founded some 2,500 years ago. Two players alternately place black and white playing pieces on a board with a 19×19 grid lines. A stone can be removed by occupying all orthogonally-adjacent points, thereby surrounding it. The objective is to capture the most territory on the board.
Google’s blog explains the rules of the game. “The matches will be played under Chinese rules with a komi of 7.5 (the compensation points the player who goes second receives at the end of the match). Each player will receive two hours per match with three lots of 60-second byoyomi (countdown periods after they have finished their allotted time). Each match is expected to take 4-5 hours,” the blog post reads.
The winner will not only prove which is the more intelligent species, but also get a prize money of $1 million. The blog post also says if AlphaGo wins, the prize money will be donated to organizations like UNICEF, STEM and Go societies.
[Source:- BGR.in]
