Machines and models versus humans: Not a no-contest
In 2016, the days from 6 March to 15 March were marked on the calendar for a much anticipated match-up between machine intelligence and human intelligence. AlphaGo, an artificial intelligence (AI) powered machine developed by DeepMind, took on Lee Sedol, the undisputed human champion of Go in a best-of-five-games contest. AlphaGo easily won the first game.
As the series progressed, as soon as AlphaGo made Move No. 37 in the second tie, watchers froze in bewilderment. Expert commentators shook their heads in disbelief.
The machine had made an awful move. Even Go beginners knew that once you make that move, one can never win a game from there on. So, how could the machine make such a ‘stupid’ move? But, to everyone’s surprise, AlphaGo won the second game too.
Only after the game was over, while retracing each move made by the machine, did the game’s experts decipher the brilliance behind what had seemed like a silly move. Mechanophiliacs went berserk. One wrote, “It is now a mistaken belief that the only way to develop machines that perform a task, at the level of a human being, is to copy the way that human beings perform that task." Another said, “Machines are no longer riding on the coat-tails of human intelligence." In the third game of the match as well, AlphaGo comprehensively defeated its human opponent.
With this, many proclaimed that the superiority of machine intelligence over human intelligence had been established once and for all. In the fourth game, as AlphaGo made Move No. 77, commentators who had given it a 70% chance of winning did not seem to stir.
Read more on livemint.com
