Yes, DeepMind’s AlphaGo’s winning against the world’s leading Go champions in 2017  was absolutely a clear win for DeepMind. No question.

However, something more magical happened!

AlphaGo (Neural net, machine learning, deep learning) was not bound by traditional moves.  On several occasions it made moves which the Go global community were stunned about. Go is like a cult movement, which I resemble more like a science than a board game and players are extremely pensive and deep thinkers.

Once the shock of AlphaGo’s moves settled in, the human players realized that AI had anticipated so far ahead, beyond human capabilities, that it proposed a move so shocking, but in fact, moves that caused the humans ultimately to lose.

This is not about winning or losing. It is about enabling extraordinary thinking by machines – having the machine play millions of games & learn at a complexity not possible for humans.

Secondly, turns out AlphaGo aided the humans by teaching them moves (possibilities) that human players could not have anticipated. Hence a beautiful case of AI (Machines) augmenting human thinking.

Bottom Line:  AlphaGo did not just win, rather it will enable far stronger human players moving forward. Machine Augmenting Humans!