By Alex Wilkins
Publication Date: 2026-03-07 06:00:00
AlphaGo’s victory broadcast on television
I am Hun-jung/Yonhap/AP Photo via Getty Images
In March 2016, Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence system AlphaGo shocked the world. In a breathtaking five-game series of Go, the ancient Chinese board game, the AI defeated the world’s best player, Lee Sedol – a moment televised to millions and hailed by many as a historic moment in the development of artificial intelligence.
Chris Maddison, now a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Toronto, was a master’s student at the time and helped get the project off the ground. It all started when Ilya Sutskever, the later founder of OpenAI, contacted…
Alex Wilkins: How did the idea for AlphaGo come about?
Chris Maddison: Ilya (Sutskever) gave me the following argument for why we should work on Go. He said, “Chris, do you think that if an experienced player looks at the Go board, he can choose the best move in half a second?” If you think…
