Are Computers That Win at Chess Smarter Than Geniuses?

But then there was the Chinese game of go (pictured), estimated to be 4000 years old, which offers more "degrees of freedom" (possible moves, strategy, and rules) than chess (2 10170). As futurist George Gilder tells us, in Gaming AI, it was a rite of passage for aspiring intellects in Asia: "Go began as a rigorous rite of passage for Chinese gentlemen and diplomats, testing their intellectual skills and strategic prowess. Later, crossing the Sea of Japan, Go enthralled the Shogunate, which brought it into the Japanese Imperial Court and made it a national cult." Then AlphaGo, from Google's DeepMind, appeared on the scene in 2016: As the Chinese American titan Kai-Fu Lee explains in his bestseller AI Super-powers,8 the riveting encounter between man and machine across the Go board had a powerful effect on Asian youth. Though mostly unnoticed in the United States, AlphaGo's 2016 defeat of Lee Sedol was avidly watched by 280 million Chinese, and Sedol's loss was a shattering experience. The Chinese saw DeepMind as an alien system defeating an Asian man in the epitome of an Asian game.