Essay
It was during game two of Lee Sedol’s best of five match against AlphaGo that he stepped out for a smoke break.
While he was gone, AlphaGo played what many would later call a Divine Move—a term reserved for plays that are truly original and exceptional. Given how long Go’s been played, these moves are extremely rare. They’re so rare that in the popular manga series Hikaru no Go, the deuteragonist—an ancient ghost obsessed with Go—haunts a modern-day child just for the chance to play again, hoping to one day play a Divine Move (Kami no Itte, 神の一手).
The funny thing is, when this move was played, all of the experts and viewers were confused by it. They had thought that it was a mistake. When Lee finally returned, his reaction was similar. First, he instinctively smiled, like an adult would to a kid when they do something surprising, but within seconds, looked confused and worried. Lee would go on to lose game two to AlphaGo because of that move, move 37.
“…this move is very special because with this move, all [of] the stones played before work together, [and] connect [like a] network. It’s very special, very special.” - Fan Hui, AlphaGo
“I thought AlphaGo was based on probability calculation and [that] it was merely a machine. But when I saw this move, it changed my mind. Surely AlphaGo is creative. This move was really creative and beautiful.” - Lee Sadol, AlphaGo
Lee had won 18 international titles and was widely recognized as one of the best players throughout history, but in just two games, AlphaGo completely changed the way he viewed the game of Go.
“This move made me think about Go in a new light. What does creativity mean in Go? It was a really meaningful move.” - Lee Sadol on Move 37, Alpha Go
AlphaGo’s Divine Move offered us a glimpse into the true potential of AI—it’s not just a powerful tool, it’s a catalyst for understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
“I feel something… very strange. I lose [to AlphaGo] and I don’t understand myself anymore.” - Fan Hui on his loss to AlphaGo, AlphaGo
“I feel thankful and feel like I’ve found the reason I play Go.” - Lee Sedol, AlphaGo
“When you play with AlphaGo, you feel very strange. You look like you’re all the time naked. The first time you see this, you don’t want to see.. this is me? The real me? And more and more, you need to accept, oh this is real me. So now, how can I do?” - Fan Hui, AlphaGo
“It’s just when I play AlphaGo, it shows me something. I see the world different, before everything [began]. What is [Go]? Maybe [it] can show humans something we never discovered. Maybe it’s beautiful.” - Fan Hui, AlphaGo
(Although Go players seem to have a flair for the dramatic, they take their profession very seriously, which means we can likely take them at their word.)
AI will help people—at scale—maximize their potential, more than any other technology ever has.
It was only poetic that in the same series with AlphaGo, that Lee played his own Divine Move. At the time, just like with AlphaGo’s Divine Move, the commentators and experts were confused by it. This was move 78. Apparently, AlphaGo was also surprised by the move, as it would go on to make strange play after strange play (in a bad way), and eventually lost the game.
Upon entering the post-game media room, Lee received a standing ovation and thunderous applause. Winning game four was an emotional victory for not just Lee Sedol, but for everyone, including the developers behind AlphaGo. Even though AlphaGo is ultimately a human creation, we couldn’t help but feel like Lee was playing on behalf of “humanity”.
“Fan Hui will tell you that after five months of playing match after match with AlphaGo, he sees the game completely differently. His world ranking has skyrocketed. And apparently, Lee Sedol feels the same way. Hassabis says that he and the Korean met after Game Four, and that Lee Sedol echoed the words of Fan Hui. Just these few matches with AlphaGo, the Korean told Hassabis, have opened his eyes. - What does it mean to be creative? It’s crazy that these guys who are the most creative in the world finally find out what creativity means.” - Wired
I wonder, could Lee have played move 78, a move that will forever be a part of his legacy, if he never played AlphaGo? If he never saw move 37?
It’s also amazing because AlphaGo was a very nascent expression of AI. With the advancements in generative AI since then, it’s exciting to think about the fact that more and more people will experience their own version of move 78, and expand their humanness because of it.
After AlphaGo was made public, there was an increase in “novel moves” and “creative” play among human players, with 88% of games showing novel strategies by 2018, up from 63% in 2015, measured by median annual Decision Quality Index (DQI) rising from between -0.2 and 0.2 before 2015 to above 0.7 from 2018 to 2021.