Where Wetware Still Dominates Hardware

Writing for Wired, Alan Levinovitz chronicles the quest to develop a computer program that can beat a human Go champion.

Levinovitz indicates why computers have had more success with chess and poker and even Jeopardy than with Go and follows Frenchman Rémi Coulom's Go-playing software Crazy Stone as it matches wits with both wet- and hardware in the University of Electro-Communications Cup.

Unlike others writing about how computers are making inroads into games formerly dominated by humans, Levinovitz rejects the notion that machines can compete with Homo sapiens on anything like equal footing. "Computers can’t 'win' at anything," he writes, "not until they can experience real joy in victory and sadness in defeat, a programming challenge that makes Go look like tic-tac-toe." 

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