The NHS is a much bigger challenge for DeepMind than Go

People have a weird obsession with games likes Chess and Go. Achievement in them has long been seen as a marker of human intellect, and yet they're among the least human test you could devise; putting players in simplified situations where everything is known, every possible course of action is laid out for them, and the test is one of concentration and logic. We pass far greater tests daily, when we recognise a face in a crowd, when we dynamically balance in motion, when we predict the response our words and expressions will have on another sentient being, or when we do all of the above, effortlessly, at the same time. We don't think of these as challenging because they're so innately human, while playing Chess or Go seems far more impressive precisely because they're more rigid and computational in nature. There's an irony in making a board game one of the'grand challenges' of AI, and it surprises me that more people don't see it.