Google’s AlphaGo AI program has won three and lost one of the five Go matches against the game’s human world champion.
Despite his victory in game four, South Korean Lee Se-dol has lost the majority of the five matches against Google’s AI software in the DeepMind challenge.
AlphaGo won the first three matches held on March 9, 10 and 12, while Se-dol won on March 13. One last game will be hosted this Tuesday.
"I could not be happier today. This victory is priceless. I would not trade it for the world," said Se-dol following his win.
"I have never been congratulated so much because I have won one game."
Google said losing the match helps to expose a problem which Google will now try to fix.
Twenty-four hours before, Se-dol told press he was "very sorry for the powerless display" after losing his third game and that he has "never felt before such severe pressure as I do now, and I suppose my abilities were a bit lacking to overcome that".
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The winner of the five-game championship being held at Seoul’s Four Seasons, South Korea, will receive $1m. According to local press, Se-dol will receive $150,000 for participating.
Google has said the prize money will be donated to charities, including Unicef and Go organisations.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose company is also working on an AI personal assistant, congratulated Google for its achievement in a post on his social media plaform.
He said: "Congrats to the Google DeepMind team on this historic milestone in AI research — a third straight victory over Go grandmaster Lee Sedol. We live in exciting times."
Chinese game Go dates back 2,500 years and simply requires a squared board and black and white stones to be played. It is seen as more complex than chess as the player has up to 200 move options compared to 20 in chess.
The objective of the game is to use the stones to create territories by surrounding vacant areas of the board, capturing one’s stones.
The matches in South Korea have captured the world’s attention, with DeepMind team members saying on Twitter that more press has travelled to Seoul than to other Google major events.
Picture: (GOOGLE DEEPMIND / AFP/Getty Images)
