Lee Saedol was one of the world’s top Go players, and his shocking loss to an A.I. opponent was a harbinger of a new, unsettling era. “It may not be a happy ending,” he says.
"Lee Saedol was the finest Go player of his generation when he suffered a decisive loss, defeated not by a human opponent but by artificial intelligence." That's the lede in a fascinating July 11 New York Times article. “Losing to A.I., in a sense, meant my entire world was collapsing,” he said in a recent interview with The New York Times. As society wrestles with what A.I. holds for humanity’s future, Mr. Lee is now urging others to avoid being caught unprepared, as he was, and to become familiar with the technology now. He delivers lectures about A.I., trying to give others the advance notice he wishes he had received before his match.
“I faced the issues of A.I. early, but it will happen for others,” Mr. Lee said recently at a community education fair in Seoul to a crowd of students and parents. “It may not be a happy ending.”