Researchers have already created AI programs that outperform the best human players in board games such as chess and backgammon. In 1992, researchers from IBM developed TD-Gammon, which used classic reinforcement learning algorithms and an artificial neural network to play backgammon at the level of a top player. In 1997, Deep Blue, a chess-playing program developed by IBM and Carnegie Mellon University, defeated then world champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game face off. This was the first time that a computer program defeated the world champion in chess.
Developing Go playing agents is not a new topic, and hence one may wonder what took so long for researchers to replicate such successes in Go. The answer is simple—Go, ...
