[net.games.go] 'Go' challenge

devine@vianet.UUCP (Bob Devine) (08/08/86)

  Here is a news item that was published in August 5th "PC Week":

	  You can be $1 million richer if you're the first
	person to devise a Go program that can beat a human
	expert.

	  MultiTech Inc., Taiwan's largest manufacturer of
	personal computers, is sponsoring the contest in
	conjuction with the Taiwanese Ing Chang-chi Weich'i
	Educational Foundation.

	  MultiTech says that its motives are:

	1. to create an awareness of the Chinese origins of the
	game Go and to increase interest in the game;

	2. to spur development of computer hardware, software
	and artificial intelligence; and

	3. to increase international awareness of progress in
	the Taiwanese computer industry.

	The contest was inspired by a similar one that began about
	30 years ago and which promised to award its prize to the 
	author of the first chess program that could be a human
	master.  That contest lasted for siz years before the
	prize was won -- a whopping 2,000 pounds sterling (about
	$10,000).  

	The computer/Go contest will be staged annually from now
	until the end of the century, according to MultiTech.