By contrast, when the Google Brain–powered AlphaGo software defeated the Korean Go professional Lee Sedol, one of the highest-rated players in the world, something had changed. In the second of five games, AlphaGo played a move that stunned Sedol and spectators alike, placing one of its stones on the far side of the board, and seeming to abandon the battle in progress. ‘That’s a very strange move,’ said one commentator. ‘I thought it was a mistake,’ said the other. Fan Hui, another seasoned Go player who had been the first professional to lose to the machine six months earlier, said of it:
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