Go champion of the world wants a piece of Google’s DeepMind AI

No, the honor of that title goes to 18-year-year-old Chinese wunderkind Ke Jie. Prior to AlphaGo’s victory over Lee Sedol, Ke stated that he had no interest in going toe-to-toe with the digital demolisher. By observing the AI’s playstyle, Ke said that he felt confident that he was better than the artificial intelligence. “I don’t want to play against AlphaGo because I can tell from its performance that it is weaker than me,” he said. “I don’t want it to copy my patterns and learn from me.”

Now Ke is changing his tune. When 33-year-old Lee was defeated in a three-and-a-half-hour slugfest, it piqued Ke’s competitive nature. He claims that, although he underestimated the AI, he still believes he can take it down. It has been reported that a spokesman for the Chinese Go Association revealed at the 37th annual World Amature Go Championship this past weekend that AlphaGo would be setting up a match with Ke before the end of the year. DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis has since tweeted that the match isn’t set in stone just yet, but it’s possible that we might have a true man against machine showdown coming for 2016.

What are your thoughts regarding Google’s AI going up against the world’s leading Go player? Let us know in the comments below.

Next: AlphaGo’s victory: how it was achieved and why it matters