Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) unit DeepMind will host a Future of Go Summit in China next month, DeepMind’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Demis Hassabis announced on Monday. Hassabis explained how the upcoming festival will be yet another step in the company’s endeavor to improve its AlphaGo AI and learn more about how its creation can help human players evolve and improve their skills at playing the three-millennia-old board game that was considered to be too difficult for computers just a few years ago. The Future of Go Summit will be held in Wuzhen, China, from May 23 to May 27, Hassabis revealed. DeepMind’s CEO also added that the company will be hosting the event in partnership with the Chinese government and the China Go Association, noting how China was chosen as the location for the event due to the fact that the Far Eastern country is also the birthplace of Go.
The Future of Go Summit is set to pit top players against AlphaGo in a broad range of different game formats that are specifically designed to explore new ways in which AI can help revolutionize Go, Hassabis said. Those game formats will include Pair Go, Team Go, and Ke Jie vs AlphaGo, with the first one pairing two Chinese professional Go players against each other and giving both access to their very own AlphaGo companion that will help them devise and execute a winning strategy. The Team Go format will see AlphaGo play against five best Go players in the country with the goal of determining how efficiently can DeepMind’s AI adapt to an incredibly demanding and mixed style those five players will come up with, something that no single individual would likely be able to match. Finally, the Ke Jie vs AlphaGo format will be yet another iteration of DeepMind’s traditional test, a man-versus-machine game type that will pit AlphaGo against Ke Jie, currently the best human Go player in the world.
While DeepMind is looking to evolve Go with its AI, the traditional game still isn’t set to adopt machines anytime soon. In fact, certain official bodies governing Go are presently planning to ban AlphaGo from future tournaments.