Sour grapes at Facebook over Google's AI victory

Just a few months ago, the social network thought that its AI experts were on the cusp of a breakthrough, making a computer that could play Go faster than any previous machine. Then Google came along and blew them out of the water, revealing first that it had built a Go computer capable of defeating a professional human player, and then going on to beat Lee Sedol, the greatest player of the last decade, 4-1 over the course of a week. Facebook has already tried to spoil Google's thunder once, with Mark Zuckerberg releasing a coincidentally timed statement on the company's Go progress just one day before Google announced its victory over the European champion Fan Hui (and one day after Google had already revealed to the press that the victory had occurred). Zuckerberg himself has been more conciliatory this time round, posting after a message of congratulations after AlphaGo's third victory in a row: "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."