AI, the humanity!

If you heard about AlphaGo's latest exploits last week -- crushing the world's best Go player and confirming that artificial intelligence had mastered the ancient Chinese board game -- you may have heard the news delivered in doomsday terms. There was a certain melancholy to Ke Jie's capitulation, to be sure. The 19-year-old Chinese prodigy declared he would never lose to an AI following AlphaGo's earthshaking victory over Lee Se-dol last year. To see him onstage last week, nearly bent double over the Go board and fidgeting with his hair, was to see a man comprehensively put in his place. But focusing on that would miss the point.