In March 2016, more than 200 million people watched AlphaGo become first computer program to defeat a professional human player at the game of Go, a milestone in AI research that was considered to be a decade ahead of its time. Since then the team has continued to develop the system and recently unveiled AlphaZero: a program that has taught itself how to play chess, Go, and shogi. Hannah explores the inside story of both with Lead Researcher David Silver and finds out why games are a useful proving ground for AI researchers. She also meets Chess Grandmaster Matthew Sadler and women’s international master Natasha Regan, who have written a book on AlphaZero and its unique gameplay.

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Further reading

AlphaGo the documentary • The Surrounding Game: Documentary about the ancient game of GoDeepMind website: AlphaGoGarry Kasparov: Deep ThinkingAI: More than Human - Exhibition at the Barbican Centre • , 2019 and online exhibitDeepMind blog: AlphaZero: Shedding new light on chess, shogi, and GoMatthew Sadler and Natasha Regan: Game Changer - a book about chess and AI • WIRED: What the AI behind AlphaGo can teach us about being human Interviewees: DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Matthew Sadler, chess Grandmaster; Lead Researcher David Silver, Matt Botvinick, Director of Neuroscience Research; and Natasha Regan, women’s international chess master.

Credits: Presenter: Hannah Fry Editor: David Prest Senior Producer: Louisa Field Producers: Amy Racs, Dan Hardoon Binaural Sound: Lucinda Mason-Brown Music composition: Eleni Shaw (with help from Sander Dieleman and WaveNet) Commissioned by DeepMind

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