The computer that stunned humanity by beating the best mortal players at a strategy board game requiring "intuition" has become even smarter, its makers said October 18. Even more startling, the updated version of AlphaGo is entirely self-taught - a major step towards the rise of machines that achieve superhuman abilities "with no human input", they reported in the science journal Nature.
Dubbed AlphaGo Zero, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) system learnt by itself, within days, to master the ancient Chinese board game known as "Go" - said to be the most complex two-person challenge ever invented. It came up with its own, novel moves to eclipse all the Go acumen humans have acquired over thousands of years.
After just three days of self-training it was put to the ultimate test against AlphaGo, its forerunner which previously dethroned the top human champs. AlphaGo Zero won by 100 games to zero. The 3,000-year-old Chinese game played with black and white stones on a board has more move configurations possible than there are atoms in the Universe.
AlphaGo made world headlines with its shock 4-1 victory in March 2016 over 18-time Go champion Lee Se-Dol, one of the game's all-time masters. Lee's defeat showed that AI was progressing faster than widely thought, said experts at the time who called for rules to make sure powerful AI always remains completely under human control.
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