Google's AI Has Won Its First Match Against Go World Champion Lee Sedol

In the first of a series of matches, Google Deepmind’s powerful artificial intelligence AlphaGo has beaten he world champion of Go, Lee Sedol.

The match between Sedol and DeepMind—in fact the first of five—was broadcast live on YouTube beginning March 9th. According to Google, it was a “close first game.”
The overall winner of the five-game series will walk away with $1 million. AlphaGo already beat the three-time European Go champion Fan Hui over the course of five matches, but Sedol is largely considered to be a much harder challenge, having dominated the world of Go for much of his professional career.

Whether he can win this set of games remains to be seen—but first impressions aren’t positive for the human contender.