This episode revisits the historic 2016 match between DeepMind's AlphaGo and the legendary Go player Lee Sedol, a moment that is presented not just as a technical milestone but as a profound and even unsettling glimpse into the nature of a new, "alien" form of intelligence. The episode explains that AlphaGo's victory was not just about brute-force computation; it was a demonstration of a new kind of learning, a system that could develop strategies and insights that were both powerful and, at times, completely outside the realm of human experience. This "alien" quality of AlphaGo's play, the episode argues, is what made this event so much more than just another man-versus-machine competition.

The discussion delves into the specific moves and strategies that made AlphaGo's play so revolutionary. It highlights "Move 37" in the second game, a move that was so unorthodox and unexpected that it was initially dismissed by human experts as a mistake, only to be later revealed as a stroke of strategic genius. This moment is presented as a perfect example of how AI can not only master human knowledge but can also go beyond it, discovering new and creative solutions that are not constrained by the limitations of human intuition and experience.

The episode concludes by reflecting on the broader implications of this new, "alien" intelligence. It explores how the same techniques that powered AlphaGo are now being applied to a wide range of scientific and real-world problems, from protein folding and drug discovery to materials science and climate modeling. The story of AlphaGo is presented as a powerful and inspiring example of how AI can be used not just to automate human tasks but to augment our own intelligence, helping us to solve problems and make discoveries that were once thought to be beyond our reach.