An artificial intelligence (AI) program, created by Google DeepMind, has beaten the European 'Go' Champion. Go is a Chinese game that has been played for over 2,500 years; players compete for territory by taking turns placing stones on a 19 x 19 grid. Because of the strategic moves possible (10171 moves to be precise), it is far more complex than chess (9 million possible moves) and subsequently has had the AI community stumped for years.
This artificial intelligence victory is a breakthrough for AI with wide ranging consequences and has potential implications for the fields of health, climate change, and economics, to name but a few. Dr Demis Hassabis (1994 & Fellow Benefactor), Google DeepMind’s CEO who received a First in Computer Science at Queens’, foresees changes ahead with this improved technology, “With any new technologies, there has always been a change in the job landscape so I think it will be the same again here”. Aware of the speed of developments within the AI community, Dr Hassabis warns, “The pace of change is very fast and we need to have an active debate about how [AI developments] are going to impact society and how the benefits accrue to the many rather than just the few”.
Having tackled the pinnacle of board game challenges, the DeepMind team are turning their attention towards 3D games, which, as they are more like real world simulations, present a new set of challenges.
Demis is a Fellow Benefactor of Queens' College and The Hassabis Fellowship in Computer Science at the College is currently held by Dr Andrew Rice.
Read more about Google DeepMind's 'Go' breakthrough on the BBC.