This computer Go poll, conducted in 1997 to estimate arrival times for shodan and world champion level software play, is interesting: the programmers were a bit too optimistic, but the actual time required for shodan level was very close to the median estimate.
That doesn’t bode too well for reaching world champion level—if I toss the list into tr -s '[:space:]' | cut -d ' ' -f 3 | sort -g | head -14, the median estimate is 2050! Personally, I expect it by 2030.
There is now reportedly a Go program (available as a bot on KGS), which has hit 5-dan as of 2012.
This computer Go poll, conducted in 1997 to estimate arrival times for shodan and world champion level software play, is interesting: the programmers were a bit too optimistic, but the actual time required for shodan level was very close to the median estimate.
That doesn’t bode too well for reaching world champion level—if I toss the list into
tr -s '[:space:]' | cut -d ' ' -f 3 | sort -g | head -14, the median estimate is 2050! Personally, I expect it by 2030.