Go Is Going To The Computers
After Garry Kasparov lost to Deep(er) Blue in 1997, souls fearful of the power of computers to outdo the human intellect drew a new line in the sand: maybe you pesky programmers got us in chess, but Go? No!
The best Go players held out for a good long time, but it seems their days are numbered - unless the countdown clock has already reached zero. There was a recent match where a program defeated a Go professional, but not one of the highest caliber. Now that has happened too: a program called AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol, a 9th Dan player, in the first game of a five-game challenge match. (Resistance is futile.)
I'm sure Go will survive and continue to thrive, and hopefully they will have fewer problems with computer cheating than we've had in the chess world. Meanwhile, are there any other lines in the sand worth drawing? There are plenty of things computers can't do, but what is left for them in the realm of games requiring deep calculation?
(HT: Mutlu Arpaci)