Update, May 25, 10am BST: Google's AlphaGo has defeated Ke Jie again, confirming what we already know: AlphaGo is the best Go player in the world.

Chinese wunderkind Ke did provide a glimmer of hope for humanity, though. DeepMind's cofounder Demis Hassabis said that, according to AlphaGo's internal evaluations, Ke played "perfectly" at the beginning of the game. Later, he tweeted that Ke Jie "pushed AlphaGo right to the limit." But then, as the grand vizier of Earth's new robot sultan, he would say that.

At the post-game press conference, Hassabis expounded on that thought: “For the first 100 moves it was the closest we’ve seen anyone play against the Master version of AlphaGo."

Ke Jie, who was quite shaken after the first game, seemed a little more jovial at the press conference. “Today's game was different from the first," Ke said, according to a Chinese translator. "AlphaGo made some moves which were opposite from my vision of how to maximise the possibility of winning. I also thought I was very close to winning the game in the middle but maybe that’s not what AlphaGo was thinking.

"I’m a little bit sad, it’s a bit of a regret because I think I played pretty well.”

There will be a third and final game on Saturday, to see if Ke Jie can capitalise on any perceived weaknesses in AlphaGo. Tomorrow, Friday, there'll be a number of exhibition matches, including AlphaGo versus the combined mental muscle of five Chinese pros. Check out the event website for full details of all the matches being played and their timings.

Update, May 23, 9am BST: DeepMind's AlphaGo AI has defeated Ke Jie in the first round of a best-of-three Go match in China. A video of the match is embedded below. Ke Jie was defeated by just a half a point—the closest margin possible—but Go scoring versus AlphaGo is a little bit disingenuous: DeepMind's AI doesn't try to win by a large margin; it just plots the surest route to victory, even if it's only half a point.

Ke Jie is generally considered to be the world's best human Go player, but he wasn't expected to win: AlphaGo defeated the Chinese 19-year-old earlier in the year during an unbeaten online 60-match victory streak.

Today's real-life match was a little different, though. According to DeepMind cofounder Demis Hassabis, Ke Jie "used the ideas AlphaGo used in the online games in January"; in other words, Ke Jie tried to use AlphaGo's own moves against itself. Clearly it didn't quite work out, but "some wonderful moves were played," says Hassabis.

Original story (April 10)

Humanity has been granted one last attempt to beat its artificially intelligent overlords: Ke Jie, the world's top-ranked Go player, will face down against DeepMind's AlphaGo in China in a three-game match starting May 23.

The odds are not good for Ke Jie: back in January AlphaGo secretly played 60 online matches against some of the world's best players, including Ke Jie, and didn't lose a single one. Still, as Homo sapiens' last redoubt against in silico domination, he has to try.

Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind, says the match is part of a larger "Future of Go Summit" in the town of Wuzhen, China—the country where Go was invented some 3,000 years ago. The summit will draw "leading AI experts" from Google and China, and in addition to the marquee event there'll be some experimental matches.

In one slightly insulting variation, five human players will team up to try and beat a single AlphaGo AI. In another, human players will buddy up with their own instance of AlphaGo, alternating moves against another human-AI pairing. Presumably other Go-playing AIs from China will be at the summit as well, not just AlphaGo, but details are slim right now.

Rather than lament the beginning of the end for humanity, which would probably be unwise given his position within an embryonic megacorp, Hassabis discusses how AlphaGo's victory over Lee Se-dol in March last year has rejuvenated the ancient game: "Instead of diminishing the game, as some feared, artificial intelligence has actually made human players stronger and more creative. It’s humbling to see how pros and amateurs alike, who have pored over every detail of AlphaGo’s innovative game play, have actually learned new knowledge and strategies about perhaps the most studied and contemplated game in history."

Hassabis then quotes Zhou Ruiyang, a professional Go player: "AlphaGo’s play makes us feel free, that no move is impossible. Now everyone is trying to play in a style that hasn’t been tried before."

Well, duh, that's just what AlphaGo wants you to feel right now.

Now read about how DeepMind is working with the National Grid to reduce power usage by 10%...