Taiwan’s Aja Huang (黃士傑) is one of the key developers behind AlphaGo, the artificial intelligence (AI) program developed by Google’s DeepMind unit that on Thursday secured a second win against go world champion Lee Sedol in Seoul.
Huang, who obtained sixth-dan ranking as an amateur go player in 2007, sat opposite Lee during the first two matches, placing the counters on behalf of AlphaGo.
Professor Lin Shun-hsi (林順喜) at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) said Huang completed his doctorate in computer engineering inside five years, but extended the course by two years to develop software known as “Erica.”
Photo courtesy of National Taiwan Normal University professor Lin Shun-hsi
Huang chose go as his primary subject the moment he enrolled in the program, Lin said, adding that his initial programs lost against low-level go players.
The culmination of nearly a decade of effort was the software Erica, which defeated the then-champion program “Zen” and won a gold at the Computer Olympiad.
Huang was also the founding member of the go club at NTNU, Lin said.
Huang was in constant contact with many first-rate programmers abroad and he used that to his advantage, Lin said, adding that Huang could often be found making video calls to the experts to discuss crucial programming techniques if he was having problems.
Huang obtained a job as a research assistant in Canada and went on to work at English company DeepMind in 2012, Lin said, adding that Huang and David Silver were the head programmers at the company.
Lin said he is happy that Huang never gave up his explorations of AI programming for the game go.
“Huang is living proof that NTNU should not just be known as a university that produces educators,” Lin said.
The next match between Lee and AlphaGo is scheduled for today, with a total of five matches to be played by Tuesday next week. The winner is to receive a prize of US$1 million (NT$32,95 million).
Lee, a South Korean who holds 18 world titles, said he was “speechless” after losing a match for a second consecutive day on Thursday.
Lee said AlphaGo played a near-perfect game on Thursday and admitted that he did not feel he was leading at any point during the game.
AlphaGo generated widespread attention when an article published in the journal Nature explained how DeepMind had succeeded in producing an AI program that had mastered go and had achieved a 99.8 percent success rate against other AI programs.
Additional reporting by CNA
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