AlphaGo’s release astonished the speaker because he had played Go for many years and understood its complexity.

“yeah maybe it's useful to talk about how i got into ai in the beginning right so uh as a kid so i spent time in japan and china i grew up playing go you know going alpha go so when alpha go came out i was a senior in high school and i was mind blown because i've been playing this game for many many years it's so complicated like i think before alpha go came out people were like okay go is one of the game the ai will never solve the search space is like”