"AI has advanced since AlphaGo ... A new 'human move' is emerging" [AI World 2026]

[Financial News] Former professional Go player Lee Sedol, a ninth-dan player and professor at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, described the difference in playing strength between himself and Shin Jin-seo, a ninth-dan player regarded as the world's best active Go player, as "the difference between heaven and earth." Shin Jin-seo is so much stronger that Lee now needs to play a handicap game, placing the black stones first. The comparison was unexpected. Lee was once known as a legend of Go and a symbol of confidence, having won 50 domestic and international tournaments before retiring in 2019. He attributed the sharp widening of the gap in playing strength to "AI's tremendous advances."■New Innovation Begins with Understanding AIIn the fourth game against AlphaGo, developed by Google DeepMind in 2016, Lee made a "divine move" that exposed a weakness in AI. The moment is still regarded as a symbolic scene that captures the age of artificial intelligence. From that match 10 years ago, Lee experienced both AI's enormous potential and its destructive power to surpass humans. He has since emphasized coexistence and cooperation with AI. His assessment is that thoroughly learning AI can raise productivity, while reaching a certain level of proficiency can also help people break out of established frameworks and think originally.
At AI World 2026, jointly hosted by Financial News and the Ministry of Science and ICT on the ninth at Lotte Cinema in Lotte World Tower in Songpa-gu, Seoul, Lee Sedol and Kim Deok-jin took part in a special discussion titled "The Era of Coexistence Between AI and Humans After AlphaGo." They agreed that "the process of understanding AI can lead to innovative thinking."
At the event, AI expert Kim Deok-jin, director of the IT Communication Research Institute, also noted, "If companies properly understand and study AI, the way they work could change completely." He analyzed that AI will help enhance human creativity. By making work hours more efficient, AI can give people more time to think creatively, potentially leading to new ideas.
Lee also stressed that the gap in playing strength among Go players is widening significantly depending on how well they use AI. "If AI throws out 10 moves, understanding only about three of them is enough to become a top-ranked player, which shows that whether players understand AI's moves has a major impact on their strength," he said. "After watching and learning from AI for years, my understanding improved considerably, and I began playing Go in a distinctly human way again." The new patterns suggested by AI are becoming the foundation for Go players' original game records. Kim said, "Those who kept learning from and exploring the moves AI produced, and thinking deeply about them, moved ahead instead. In the end, understanding AI's principles is the key."■The More Humans Use AI, the More Their Abilities ImproveThe speakers also predicted that new ways of working could emerge by combining companies' existing work practices with AI. They argued that innovation and change become possible as people adapt to AI and improve the efficiency of their work. In the past, Go players spent the day before a match resting to manage their condition or reviewing game records. Now, they practice against AI programs whose play changes in real time until just before a match, using them to assess their skills.
When Lee said, "Go has shown that the more we understand and learn from AI, the faster our abilities improve," Kim responded, "From a corporate perspective, it is an extremely important insight to keep debating with AI and find a methodology of our own."
Looking back at his match with AlphaGo 10 years ago, Lee said he would advise his past self to "prepare and be ready." With many companies still unprepared for the AI era, his advice was that they should at least try adopting AI, even if they encounter trial and error. Lee lamented that he had been insufficiently prepared because he had not anticipated AlphaGo's powerful performance at the time. He said, "When something new emerges, people too often hear about it and let it go in one ear and out the other. We need to focus on it, try it first, and then make a judgment."■Customized Education Needed Instead of UniformityLee also emphasized the need for customized education to develop talent in the AI era, citing the Go industry's success in producing a series of top-level players despite having a smaller pool of talent than China. "China brings Go talent from each province and supports them uniformly. That produces players near the top, but their individuality disappears, which is why it has difficulty producing the very best players," he said. "Those who use AI to create something of their own will become the leaders in their fields." He added, "The ability to acquire diverse knowledge through AI and combine and integrate it will become extremely important."
Kim said, "When we try to force our technology onto people, talented individuals find it difficult to endure. Talent will come when we approach things from a completely new perspective." He continued, "Ultimately, the goal should not be to have talent fit into our system. We need to help them thrive in step with technological change, in the way they want to work."
The two speakers concluded that innovation can emerge only through thorough research into and study of AI's new methods. Kim said, "There will be sweeping changes across fields beyond Go. This is the time to look at AI properly and feel the changes taking place in each industry." As the era of artificial general intelligence, in which AI understands and solves human tasks on its own, accelerates with developments such as OpenAI's launch of the next-generation AI model GPT-6 Astra, they suggested that adopting AI is an unavoidable task of the times.
Kim said, "Rather than adapting our work to AI, it is becoming more important to change organizations in line with AI's direction and for everyone within them to study it properly together." Companies that understand AI well can strengthen their competitiveness by changing how they work completely and doing so more quickly. He added, "Ultimately, people who only study with AI or use it only for their work can reach a certain level, but there is a limit to how far they can go in the highest echelons."
Lee stressed, "We need to view AI from the perspective of people, not merely in terms of efficiency." His explanation was that the time AI saves should be devoted more to human creativity, creating opportunities for new business ideas.
He said, "If we focus too much on efficiency, we will hit a limit beyond a certain point. Ultimately, people are the ones using AI, so when transitioning to AI, we must actively reflect the voices of employees."
[email protected] Jang Min-kwon Reporter