Google's Go-playing program to challenge world champion

Google's Go-playing program AlphaGo will take on world champion Lee Sedol in a series of games in Korea next month with a $1 million prize for the winner. Go is a 2,500-year-old game that was mentioned by Confucius. Players take turns placing black or white stones on a grid, capturing opponents' stones or surrounding spaces to take territory. AlphaGo has already bested a ranking Go master in Europe. AlphaGo, developed by Google's London-based artificial intelligence team DeepMind, trounced the best Go-playing AI programs in a series of matches, as reported by Nature last month.