Thanks for asking the same question I was thinking of asking.
It's interesting to hear people's stories about how they got interested in go. Certainly, I think the event will raise awareness of the game, but I guess it depends on the coverage. Nevertheless, I was surprised when I met people who said that they heard about go from the movie "Pi." That's a pretty niche movie to begin with and go is featured very, very briefly in it. Even with "A Beautiful Mind" it's only incidental. But even that was enough to get some people going, if they were already predisposed. Some had read the excellent book "Master of Go" by Kawabata, which of course goes into the culture and the game quite deeply.
For some, it's of course friends, family members, co-workers that get them interested.
All of these things have had a net positive effect on the popularity of go. With AlphaGo and---perhaps more importantly, what comes after it---there is also the possibility of losing players who fear that either some of the mystique of go is gone or that the culture will change for the worse, as some argue happened with chess.
Frankly, my guess is that more people will become interested in machine learning than in go. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just go players and neural network researchers, having toiled for years in obscurity, finally are perceived as having done something cool for 15 minutes and then everyone will move on to the latest fad diet or celebrity gossip.
I'm waiting a U.S. Presidential candidate to mention AlphaGo, BTW. I'm not holding my breath on that, though.
