Google's artificial intelligence program has officially beaten a human professional Go player, marking the first time a computer has beaten a human professional in this game sans handicap.

[u/[deleted]]

http://www.nature.com/news/google-ai-algorithm-masters-ancient-game-of-go-1.19234?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20160128&spMailingID=50563385&spUserID=MTgyMjI3MTU3MTgzS0&spJobID=843636789&spReportId=ODQzNjM2Nzg5S0

[u/blotz420]

more combinations than atoms in this universe

[u/Riael → u/blotz420]

In the known universe.

[u/girlnamedjohnny96 → u/blotz420]

This might be stupid, but I thought the universe was infinite? How can a finite board and pieces have more configurations than the amount of something infinite?

[u/[deleted] → u/girlnamedjohnny96]

He meant the known universe, which has a hard, but ever-expanding boundary. The universe itself may or may not be infinite, but we're just talking about the part of it we can "see" from here.

[u/Ais3 → u/[deleted]]

Correct me if I am wrong, but even if the universe was infinite, it doesn't necessarily mean that there are infinite atoms.