AlphaGo and Our Future

First there was shock. Then there was hope. Then there was fear and defeat. Last summer, one of the world’s best go players was defeated by artificial intelligence in a highly publicized series of matches at a five-star hotel in downtown Seoul. It was a humiliating loss of man (Lee Se-dol) to machine (Google’s AlphaGo). Goin Japanese, or baduk in Korean, is a notoriously complex board game and a source of cultural pride in South Korea. Losing to a machine hit South Koreans hard. Artificial i