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MONDAY, MAY 29, 2017
Kari Bazian and her dog Mona. KEVIN TUONG/FOR METRO
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Man versus machine ... machine won TECHNOLOGY
Computer made by U of A alumni defeats top go player in China
DOG DAYS OF SUMMER Animal lovers push for more pet-friendly patios metroNEWS
A University of Alberta computing-science professor says a clean sweep by a computer at a man-versus-machine competition in the ancient game of go is bittersweet. Ryan Hayward says it means the retirement of AlphaGo, a machine developed by a pair of University of Alberta alumni. AlphaGo won all three matches against China’s top player, Ke Jie, at a go summit in Wuzhen, China, last week. AlphaGo was developed by the team at Google DeepMind led by University of Alberta PhD graduate David Silver and former post-doctorate fellow Aja Huang.
Go is considered more difficult than chess for machines to master because the nearinfinite number of possible positions requires intuition and flexibility. “Three years ago if you’d asked me, I would say I would not see in my lifetime a computer program beat a human at the game of go,” Hayward said in Edmonton. Go players take turns putting white or black stones on a rectangular grid with 361 intersections, trying to capture territory and each other’s pieces by surrounding them. Hayward explained that the heart of the computer is a number of algorithms that recognize patterns in a go game. He said Google has already used the algorithms to reduce energy consumption in their server farms by 20 per cent and they may also have applications for medical diagnoses. THE CANADIAN PRESS