Xiaomi’s Lei Jun hails the dawn of AI after Google computer beats Go champion

You’re probably aware of this already, but just in case: a historic competition is playing out right now between man and machine. Google’s AlphaGo computer is taking on South Korean Go champion Lee Sedol in a five-game match, and so far, the computer is winning.

Although this may not seem like a big deal, it is. IBM’s Deep Blue computer crushed world chess champion Garry Kasparov almost 20 years ago, but Go and chess are pretty different. Go’s board is bigger, and way more moves are possible. There are a number of reasons why it’s far harder to teach computers Go, and consequently it wasn’t until recently that Go computers started being able to win any matches against high-level human players. But Lee Sedol is the first 9-dan master to take on a computer. In other words, he’s the best human player we’ve ever matched up against a Go machine, and indeed one of the best human players ever.

So far, he’s lost twice in a row.

Needless to say, this match is getting a lot of attention in China’s tech circles, and some of the country’s most prominent tech influencers have already spoken out about it. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun and Innovation Works founder and former Google China head Kaifu Lee have both gone so far as to publish essays about the match and artificial intelligence on Sina Tech.

Both essays are both interesting in their own right and also a fascinating look into how these men view the future of artificial intelligence, so we’ve translated both essays in full. Lei Jun’s essay is below, and Kaifu Lee’s can be found in a separate post here.

(Note: both of these articles were written after AlphaGo’s first win, before the second game – which AlphaGo also won – had been played).

I really like playing Go.

Moreover, I wrote programs for 10 years, and have 20 years of experience in the tech industry.

So I’m very interested in Google’s AlphaGo battle with [world Go champion] Lee Sedol. In the afternoon I had National People’s Congress meetings, but I took a peek at lunchtime, and then after the day was over quickly got on my phone to keep up with the match’s developments. Although the first game ended with Lee Sedol being defeated, I think he represented humanity’s Go expertise with wisdom and courage, and was cool and confident during the game. I truly admire him.

I knew a computer winning was a matter of time. I didn’t think it would happen so fast.

In this first game, neither side showed any weaknesses early, and it was hard to tell who had the upper hand. Some commenters have said that Lee made a mistake that allowed AlphaGo to get the upper hand, but in the middle stages of the game Lee attacked valiantly and gained it back, so much so that some thought if AlphaGo had been a human it might have surrendered. But in the end, it was AlphaGo that emerged the victor.