Anchor: In an unexpected turn of events, Google's artificial intelligence AlphaGo has won against the world's Go champion Lee Se-dol in the first round of the five-match tournament in Seoul. AlphaGo's victory came as the Go champion accepted defeat after the 186th move.
Our Kim Eun-ji has more. 
 
Report: Artificial intelligence has caught up with human intuition and senses on the checkerboard.
 
Computer program AlphaGo defeated world champion Lee Se-dol in the first round of the five-match game of Go, or baduk in Korean, in Seoul Wednesday. 

AlphaGo won by resignation as Lee gave up the game. The 33-year-old nine-dan grandmaster from South Korea struggled as the supercomputer challenger carried out exhaustive searches using its algorithm.

In a news conference following the match, Lee and Google DeepMind praised each other for how far they came.

[Sound bite: Go world champion Lee Se-dol (Korean)]
"I never expected to lose even when I was struggling in the beginning. Because I didn't expect it to play so perfectly, I was really surprised. And as [David Silver and Demis Hassabis] mentioned their respect to me, I would like to express my deep respect to the two and other programmers for developing the AlphaGo."

Game of Go professor Daniela Trinks at Myongji University said that it was surprising to see how advanced AlphaGo was this time. 

[Sound bite: Prof. Daniela Trinks - Dep't of Baduk Studies, Myongji University (English)]
"I am very surprised about this result. We watched the last three-and-a-half hours. It was an amazing game. AlphaGo played like a human. It didn't fear to fight and it made mistakes like humans would do. And the overall level of this game was very advanced."

The science journal Nature said the average 150-move game contains ten-to-the-170th power possible board configurations, more than there are atoms in the universe.

Developed by Google DeepMind in London, AlphaGo has already defeated the European Go champion last year. Some computer scientists said it is only a matter of time for AI to dominate the ancient game of Go.

The South Korean grandmaster and AlphaGo will face each other four more times on Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and next Tuesday. The winner will receive one-million U.S. dollars in prize money. Google said it will donate the money if its AI wins.

[Sound bite: Prof. Daniela Trinks - Dep't of Baduk Studies, Myongji University (English)]
"I can't say who is going to win the next games. It might be that Lee Se-dol tested AlphaGo in the latest game. Now he knows how it works."

For Go masters and computer scientists, the challenge match serves as a significant milestone in the history of AI, leaving the future of the technology to anybody's guess.
Kim Eun-ji, KBS World Radio News.