--- title: Machines Beating Mankind description: In a milestone for AI, a Google program beat South Korean grand master Lee Sedol at the strategy game Go (left) on March 15. But... canonical: https://time.com/4262489/machines-beating-mankind/ author: Tara John article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-17T10:17:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T15:58:48.666Z article:section: World og:title: Machines Beating Mankind og:description: In a milestone for AI, a Google program beat South Korean grand master Lee Sedol at the strategy game Go (left) on March 15. But... og:url: https://time.com/4262489/machines-beating-mankind/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Machines Beating Mankind twitter:description: In a milestone for AI, a Google program beat South Korean grand master Lee Sedol at the strategy game Go (left) on March 15. But... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Machines Beating Mankind by [Tara John](/author/tara-john/) ## Tara John Mar 17, 2016 10:17 AM CUT by [Tara John](/author/tara-john/) ## Tara John Mar 17, 2016 10:17 AM CUT In a milestone for AI, a Google program beat South Korean grand master Lee Sedol at the strategy game Go (left) on March 15\. But machines have been mastering board games since the 1970s. BACKGAMMON A program called BKG 9.8 became the first to defeat a human in a board game in 1979 when it beat then world champion Luigi Villa in a 7-1 match. Its creator said the victory was due to luck. CHECKERS Chinook became the first program to win a world championship against humans in 1994 when opponent Marion Tinsley withdrew because of illness. The program retained its title a year later. CHESS IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated grand master Garry Kasparov in a highly publicized 1997 tournament. The Russian won the first game, drew in the next three and forfeited his last after 19 moves. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4262489/machines-beating-mankind/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4262489/machines-beating-mankind/"},"headline":"Machines Beating Mankind","datePublished":"2016-03-17T10:17:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T15:58:48.666Z","description":"In a milestone for AI, a Google program beat South Korean grand master Lee Sedol at the strategy game Go (left) on March 15. But...","url":"https://time.com/4262489/machines-beating-mankind/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tara John","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tara-john/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4262489/machines-beating-mankind/","name":"Machines Beating Mankind"}}]}] ```