Google Go FTW

Skanky Vamp

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Black Thorn
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A huge milestone has just been reached in the field of artificial intelligence: AlphaGo, a program developed by Google's DeepMind unit, has defeated legendary Go player Lee Se-dol in the first of five historic matches being held in Seoul, South Korea. Lee resigned after about three and a half hours, with 28 minutes and 28 seconds remaining on his clock. The series is the first time a professional 9-dan Go player has taken on a computer, and Lee is competing for a $1 million prize.

"I was very surprised," said Lee after the match. "I didn't expect to lose. [But] I didn't think AlphaGo would play the game in such a perfect manner." DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis expressed "huge respect for Lee Se-dol and his amazing skills," calling the game "hugely exciting" and "very tense." Team lead David Silver said it was an "amazing game of Go that really pushed AlphaGo to its limits."

Go is an ancient Chinese board game that has long been considered one of the great challenges faced by AI. While computer programs now best the world's leading human players of games like checkers and chess, the high level of intuition and evaluation required by Go has made it tough for computers to crack. DeepMind's AlphaGo program is the most advanced effort yet, using a complex system of deep neural networks and machine learning; it beat European champion Fan Hui last year, but Lee Se-dol is another proposition entirely.

"I don’t regret accepting this challenge," said Lee. "I am in shock, I admit that, but what's done is done. I enjoyed this game and look forward to the next. I think I failed on the opening layout so if I do a better job on the opening aspect I think I will be able to increase my probability of winning." Lee was surprised both by how strong AlphaGo's opening was, and by some unexpected moves.

Lee will face off against AlphaGo again tomorrow and on Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday (11pm ET the previous evenings in the US). Whatever happens in the rest of the series, AlphaGo's victory today is a colossal moment for AI — but Lee is going to be looking for revenge. "It was a very close and tense game today," says Hassabis. "When we came into this match we thought anything was possible and we still think that now — there’s still four games to go."
 
Yeah. My prediction was wrong.

It's not strictly a bad thing for the Go community though. I mean, after the computers dominated Chess, human players became stronger than their predecessors because they learned a lot from computers. It would happen in Go too. Many Go players are actually looking forward to watch and enjoy machines (or human-machine hybrids) advancing closer to the God of Go.

The player base, however, will be severely damaged, also the same as what happened with Chess 15 years ago. Less and less kids would consider Go as their possible future career. There will be no Go schools in the next decade any more.
 
Yeah. My prediction was wrong.

It's not strictly a bad thing for the Go community though. I mean, after the computers dominated Chess, human players became stronger than their predecessors because they learned a lot from computers. It would happen in Go too. Many Go players are actually looking forward to watch and enjoy machines (or human-machine hybrids) advancing closer to the God of Go.

The player base, however, will be severely damaged, also the same as what happened with Chess 15 years ago. Less and less kids would consider Go as their possible future career. There will be no Go schools in the next decade any more.
I was awaiting your reply. I couldnt remember if THAT was the one you said should win or not. Last I read it was 2-0. I can't believe Lee Se-dol could win the next three in a row. I thought maybe the computer got lucky but it looks to be more than that now.
 
I was awaiting your reply. I couldnt remember if THAT was the one you said should win or not. Last I read it was 2-0. I can't believe Lee Se-dol could win the next three in a row. I thought maybe the computer got lucky but it looks to be more than that now.
I predicted a 5:0 win by Lee Sedol so I was already wrong two days ago.

The consensus from professional players is that Alphago is at least within human top players, if not super-human already.
Luck only works between players with very close strength.
 
The last stronghold of human , the strongest player in the world, Ke Jie, is about 100 elo stronger than Lee Sedol. He might make a difference, but not much, considering the evolution of Alphago and its hardware.
 
Sedol got toasted.

Today's game is the most tense one. Sedol tried his best to peep and seek Alphago's weaknesses in the middle game although he was in a losing position almost from the start. There's no excuses like "Lee Sedol's not in his best shape" any more.

The scary thing is, it seems that there's no weakness exposed by Sedol's desperate fighting yet. After a 0:3 loss, we still don't know how strong it could be, don't know how long a distance humans are already behind.
 
I think Sedol and the other top three players need to psychically merge into one uber player and defeat the AI by ripping out it's core processing unit. Then they can all share in the same wacky dream in which they meet and are challenged by the very first Go player.
 
I can beat the very first Go player. (If you mean the first human who invented and played Go) No bragging.

Go was developed for about 2,000 years and each generation of players is way stronger than the last because of the cumulated collaborate knowledge.
 
Sedol lost the final match. No luck finding big weaknesses/bugs today.

Alphago indeed exposed some small apparent mistakes, but exploiting them alone wasn't enough.

It's very peculiar that the AI seems to be weak (sub-pro level) at precise local fight but very strong at fuzzy global thinking and strategy. This is counter-intuitional to many Go players who hadn't known about MCTS before.
 
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