if their goal was to reveal what they were doing to the world, this is a fine way to go about it and build some anticipation and get a PR splash. if their goal

if their goal was to reveal what they were doing to the world, this is a fine way to go about it and build some anticipation and get a PR splash. if their goal was to train the best go-bot, they could have had it play not to win but to go down to the wire with very strong players but frequently lose.* Experienced players might have identified it as a bot, but would have dismissed it as "not good enough yet" *especially as per the recent story that children don't learn when they win, so trains yourself without training your opponents :)