AlphaGo, a documentary produced by Google and DeepMind, was crafted by documentary director Greg Kohs and his team. The DeepMind team took AlphaGo and played some key games against the best human players. After a small screening at various film festivals last year, the documentary has won numerous awards and was released on Netflix this year. It even had an 8.9 rating on IMDB.

“AlphaGo AlphaGo” is not the first film and television work produced by Google, but it is the first documentary work that has won numerous awards and praises at home and abroad.

The protagonist of the story: programmer VS chess player

The documentary shows how the DeepMind team invited top human players to play against each other after completing an early version of AlphaGo. The most important match was AlphaGo’s match against Lee Se-dol, then the world number one.

The main characters in the documentary are AlphaGo’s engineering team and several chess players:

“Our team hopes DeepMind will become an important forward force in AI, like the Apollo moon missions. Our biggest vision is to shape intelligence through human exploration.” — Demis Hassabis, Co-founder and CEO of DeepMind

Demis Hassabis, DeepMind’s founder and a chess player himself, played the game as a child and was runner-up in international tournaments by the age of 13. That’s one of the reasons he’s been using chess games for AI training since he started the DeepMind team. In the movie, he shows his outstanding leadership, reverence and dedication to AI and Go.

“Lee sedol is a fantastic player and I am honored to help AlphaGo play against him. I know the whole world is looking forward to this match and AlphaGo is ready.” — Shijie Huang, Chief engineer at DeepMind

Dr Huang Shijie, DeepMind’s chief engineer from Taiwan, is often silent in the film, and his colleagues explain that he is introverted and does not like being in front of the camera. He is not only an important figure in DeepMind, but also the main program of the AlphaGo project.

And he is also the person who places the pieces on behalf of AlphaGo, sitting opposite the human players in three dimensions. He is like Mitsu Jindo in “Go”, and AlphaGo is his satoshi

I not only hope to win, but also hope that I can play Go, but also hone my own, different school of chess. — Lee Sedol, famous Korean chess player

In the film, Lee Sedol is not only the opponent AlphaGo wants to beat, but also the last hope of human chess players.

Although he has been ranked at the top of the world for many years, his sincerity and humility are fully displayed in front of the camera. From the confidence before the war to the profound smile at the end, he is the person who represents human beings in dialogue with AI in the film.

Everything I’ve learned in my life has come from Go. To me, Weiqi is like a mirror. To see weiqi is to see the heart. – probably fan

Fan Hui is a special character in the film. His character is warm and straightforward, so he catches the eye. In the beginning, he is the one who, speaking fluent French, instructs French chess players on the streets of Bordeaux.

He was born in China and lived in France as an adult. He is a professional second-dan go player, whose rank is really not high compared with other top players in the film. Netizens laughingly call him “the most famous second-dan go player in the world”. He is the head coach of the French Go team, a repeat European go champion, an adviser to the DeepMind team, and the first professional human player selected by AlphaGo to be the chief judge of the man-machine game.

Not purely technical, technical documentary

Since its release, the film has been nominated for best Picture at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, the London International Film Festival, the Critics Choice Awards and even the 2018 Academy Award for Best Documentary.

The rare thing is that this is a documentary about A.I. technology from start to finish, whereas most of the nature, social news, cultural stories that tend to be favored by awards at film festivals.

The reasons include:

As a documentary, the work achieves professionalism and sophistication

The director uses skillful techniques to film this heart-shaking competition process, even though we all know the final winner of man-machine war.

The hard work of the whole team is reflected in the details of the film. Many of the producers in the team have won international documentary awards. Together, they make each character naturally show his state, emotion, attitude towards AI and expectation for the competition.

It accurately conveys the exploration and contemplation of the relationship between human beings and AI

Several of the engineers in the film are also professional and amateur chess players, and constantly express their positions and reflections on AI versus humans.

One of the biggest names in the movie

A lot of big coffee, it is estimated that also received the box lunch, in the film for a guest.

Li Fei fly,

There’s no need to introduce Feifei. She didn’t even work at Google when the documentary was shot.

Cade Metz,

Currently working for The New York Times, he is the most senior AI writer and journalist in the United States.

Professor John Daugman,

At Cambridge University, he spent his early years working on iris recognition algorithms.

With the help of these masters, even if you don’t know weiqi that well, you can quickly let the audience understand the subtlety of weiqi through the introduction of this film. If you are not interested in ARTIFICIAL intelligence technology, the simple explanation in the film can also make people quickly understand the difficulty behind the technology and the infinite possibilities of AI in the future.

Want to watch it offline with everyone?

The 90-minute documentary was released on Netflix earlier this year and can be watched online for $4.

The good news is that this documentary has also been introduced to China this year, and we have received official permission from DeepMind, the production team and the domestic distribution company to show it in China.

During this year’s 1024 Programmers Festival, it will be released offline in Beijing. Considering that this year’s Programmers Festival is a working day, we will adjust the time to hold the activity in the afternoon of October 24+4 (Sunday).

Registration: Registration link