Curiosity drew Lee Se-dol to AlphaGo

By Lee Ha-jin

Last November, I got a message from Jon Diamond, president of the British Go (“baduk” in Korean) Association. Over a teleconference, he told me that a sponsor in London — later revealed to be Google DeepMind — was interested in organizing a professional tournament.

As a brand new event is always a gift for the go community, I was delighted and was eager to hear more, but at the time I never imagined how extraordinary it would turn out to be.

DeepMind chose Lee Se-dol as the best opponent to challenge. Lee may not be the hottest player at this very moment, but he is the most famous go player of the last decade, with 18 world titles and over 1,000 official wins.

Given that even one world title or 500 wins are difficult for most professional players to achieve in a lifetime, Lee’s records are more than sufficient to make him a “living legend.”

Plus, he is still competing at the highest level, taking runner-up at the 2nd MLily Cup, a major international tournament last January.

When I told Lee about Google’s invitation, he was clearly stunned by the fact that his challenger was not a human. At first he said he would think about it, but only a few minutes later, he decided to accept the challenge.

Over dinner that evening, he couldn’t stop talking about how curious he was about AlphaGo.

The prize money and historical significance must have been a part of the consideration, but those things didn’t seem nearly as important as his excitement about the new adventure.

Ever since AlphaGo was announced through Nature and Google’s official blog two months ago, I have been receiving steady requests for interviews from media all around the world.

Their questions ranged from general ones about go and my life as a professional player to my expectations about the match between a human and a computer.

The inspiration came from AlphaGo’s challenge, but the media developed a great appetite for any stories related to the board game as well.

I am aware of the concerns that many go players have: Will professional players still be respected? When will there be a stronger artificial intelligence program? Will young players still want to become professionals?

Before we ask and find answers to these questions, though, we should look at what is already happening. As Google DeepMind attempts to explain why go is such a difficult game for computers, it teaches the whole world how the board game is a complex, profound, and beautiful game.

Social and news media around the world are obsessively following every detail of the match, making Lee a national hero and a worldwide star.

AlphaGo’s creative and unconventional moves are inspiring professional and amateur go players alike. I must say, things have never been better for the go community around the world.

It seems to be too early to talk about the positive aftermath that AlphaGo has brought to the go community.

However, I am pretty sure that no brilliant move can create a great ripple effect without the right support.

One thing I am sure of, though, is that AlphaGo just played an incredible move, and it’s up to us, the go community, to followup in a way that will be good for the world.

Lee Ha-jin is secretary general of the International Go Federation.