Happy Tuesday!

Today, we delve into the captivating world of artificial intelligence, which, despite its recent popularity, has a long-standing history.

One remarkable example is the legendary rematch on May 11th 1997 between Garry Kasparov, the world's best chess player, and IBM's Deep Blue. Initially, Kasparov triumphed, defying expectations. However, Deep Blue's formidable abilities ultimately led to Kasparov's defeat and a $1.1 million prize.

After Deep Blue's victory, the ancient Chinese game of Go, a game of simple rules and far more possible moves than chess, became the canonical example of a game where humans outmatched machines. Go requires more intuition and is far less susceptible to brute force. It is widely played in China, South Korea, and Japan, and was considered one of the four arts of the Chinese scholar in antiquity.

In 1997, many players with less than a year of experience could beat the best Go programs. But the programs gradually improved, and in 2015, Google DeepMind's AlphaGo program defeated the European Go champion Fan Hui in a private match. It then surprisingly defeated top-ranked Lee Sedol in the match AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol in 2016. While Deep Blue mainly relied on brute computational force to evaluate millions of positions, AlphaGo also relied on neural networks and reinforcement learning.

Enjoy this weeks dose of tech news from the Docto Tech Life team!