Lee Se-dol out! Is Ke Jie next Go player to rival AlphaGo?

In the battle to defend humans from another humbling by computers, has mankind got the right representative?

在这场捍卫人类尊严的人机大战中，我们真的选对了出阵代表吗？

The ancient Chinese game of Go was the last professionally played board game in which top pros were unchallenged by machines. Not any longer.

古老的中国围棋曾经是最后一项电脑无论如何也无法战胜其顶尖选手的棋牌游戏。然而这已经成为了过去。

South Korean grandmaster Lee Se-dol was beaten on Wednesday in Seoul in the first game of a best-of-five Go tournament against AlphaGo, an artificial-intelligence project developed by Google parent Alphabet Inc. "I am in shock. I never thought I would lose," Mr. Lee said after the match.

9日，韩国围棋大师李世石在首尔与AlphaGo的对弈中首轮败给了这个谷歌母公司Alphabet制造的人工智能项目。赛后，李世石说，"我惊讶极了，我从没想到自己会输。"

Mathematicians have long studied Go and some say that within just the first 40 moves, there are more possible authorized positions than atoms in the observable universe, a number roughly 80 digits long. In chess, the number of total possible games is roughly 50 digits long, according to some calculations.

数学家们对围棋已经进行了深入的研究，据他们称，仅仅在最初的40步棋，就有超过原子在可见宇宙范围内数目的棋子摆放组合。组合数量大约达到80位数。有人计算出，在国际象棋中，这样的组合数大约有50位数。

The babyfaced 33-year-old Mr. Lee has been on the front of almost every national newspaper as South Korea has become transfixed with what one called "the showdown of the century."

33岁的娃娃脸棋王李世石已经出现在韩国各大报纸的首页，整个韩国都被这场被称为"世纪之战"的对决深深折服了。

Mr. Lee is by far the most successful active Go professional, with 18 world titles since he turned pro in 1995. He has been called the Roger Federer of Go by the Google team. But just like the tennis legend, he has had less success in recent years, winning only one tournament last year.

李世石是目前最成功的职业围棋手，自他1995年正式进入职业棋坛开始已享有18项世界级头衔。谷歌的这个人工智能团队将李世石称作围棋界的费德勒（Roger Federer）。但正如那位网球界传奇人物一样，近年李世石所取得的胜利也越来越少，只在去年赢得了一次世界锦标赛。

The rising star of Go is an 18-year-old Chinese player, Ke Jie, who could be compared with tennis's Novak Djokovic, a younger player who has dominated in the past few years. Mr. Ke is undefeated against Mr. Lee, having beaten him twice this year. In 2015, he became the first player since Mr. Lee to win two world titles in one year.

围棋界的新星是一名18岁的中国棋手，柯洁。比作网球运动员的话，柯洁则应该是在过去几年表现出色的年轻网球运动员德约科维奇（Novak Djokovic）。柯洁在李世石面前是无法被击败的，他今年已经两度打败李世石，成为了在李世石之后第一个在一年内赢得两项世界头衔的棋手。

Mr. Ke made his thoughts known about Mr. Lee's loss soon after play finished. "AlphaGo may have defeated Lee Se-dol, but it can't beat me," he wrote on his Weibo account, a Twitter-like social-media service in China.

在李世石落败结果一出来，柯洁就发表了自己的看法。他在微博上说"Alphago能打败李世石，但是打败不了我。"

Chinese journalists at the Seoul tournament said that while Go fans in China were likely rooting for Mr. Lee, many would rather see Mr. Ke take on the computer.

在首尔报道这场人机对决时，中国的记者们表示，虽然中国的围棋爱好者们很多都支持李世石，但是很多都更愿意看柯洁对阵人工智能。

"Lee Se-dol is already old, and Google knew that. Why didn't they pick Ke Jie?" wrote one Weibo user. Go players generally peak in their 20s, those in the game say.

一位微博用户写道，"谷歌明明知道李世石已经老了，那他们为什么不选柯洁呢？"业内人士称，围棋棋手通常在二十多岁时达到事业的巅峰。

Demis Hassabis, founder of Google DeepMind, the developer of AlphaGo, said before the tournament that Mr. Lee was the ideal professional to test the program against because of his pedigree, but future matches might include Mr. Ke and other professionals from China and Japan, where Go is also popular.

谷歌DeepMind项目的创始人哈萨比斯（Demis Hassabis）在比赛前表示，由于李世石的名声，他是测试这个程序最理想的职业棋手。但在未来的比赛中，AlphaGo可能与柯洁对弈，并且还可能邀请中国和日本的其他棋手，围棋在这两个国家也很流行。DeepMind是AlphaGo的研发者。