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A) How would you characterize the differences and similarities between AlphaGo and the best human players? B) How has human play style changed since AlphaGo's

by rw 9y ago

A) How would you characterize the differences and similarities between AlphaGo and the best human players? B) How has human play style changed since AlphaGo's introduction? C) What is the answer to the question you most want to be asked?

conanbatt 9y ago
> How would you characterize the differences and similarities between AlphaGo and the best human players? The alphago that played Lee Sedol was still very machine-like. But the master series online felt like strong superiority. It started playing some novel moves that being at least reasonable, would make it harder to play against. In a way, it was like the radical new kid with new ideas that shakes up the foundations. So far in this game (move 40~0) i read calmness from white ,a calculated calmness. As if it knew that it would win. Note: in Go, you perceive a lot of feelings from your opponent, as the moves selected express a state of mind or emotion. AlphaGo is getting hard to distinguish from human beings. > How has human play style changed since AlphaGo's introduction? Hard to say, but alphago is definitely changing the fields of study. Professional go really is like brute-forcing the game. A professinoal chooses to go through an unstudied path because he thinks its superior, and then another professional tries to ravage that path. That adversity over professional games is what advances theory. In this game, black playing 3-3 (bottom right corner invasion) would have never been played before AlphaGo in the state of human theory. I was taught 15 years ago in my first beginner class how bad doing that is. > What is the answer to the question you most want to be asked? I guess that the most important question is what is the future of Go. Sure, current professionals will still live their lives by the game, but what is the point of being a professional in something a computer will just be better. As soon as AlphaGo beat lee sedol once last year, i said that the only future of Go right now is finding out if humans still posesss a skill AlphaGo doesnt. And thats why the pair go in this series is actually most interesting to me. Can a pro + alphaGo beat AlphaGo consistently? if so, it means humans still have something of an identity.
- nullnilvoid 9y ago
  > what is the point of being a professional in something a computer will just be better. Chess was conquered by computers a long long time (in computer time) ago and the popularity of chess has only gone up, not down. There are many professionals making a living out of chess. The art of Go will live on for sure.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    From a professional standpoint, thats pretty terrible. Sure, Catan is also easily solvable, but its played for fun. When you play as a professional you make a commitment to the board, to advance and explore the frontiers of the universe contained in the game. If the bot explores better than you every single time, you are just dedicating your life to trying to beat a calculator at arithmetics.
    - nullnilvoid 9y ago
      At least right now, computers explore the frontiers of the universe only if we humans tell them to. They explore the way we program them to. If I want to explore the frontiers of Go, I would not care about winning or losing. I would enjoy the art, the beauty, and the philosophy of Go.
    - saulrh 9y ago
      It's become a sport, with all that that implies. Training and supporting an olympic sprinter is a multi-million dollar investment. But olympic sprinters haven't been the fastest mode of travel in centuries. If all you want to do is go fast, you buy a really fast car or an aircraft and you go fast. But simply going fast isn't what the sport is about. It's about pushing humans to their limits and seeing what humans can do. It's a race. And chess has become the same. If you just want to win at chess, you ask a computer. But if you want to play a game of chess, or watch a game of chess, it's all about the humans.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        I agree with this point, but to me its a degradation of the game. It degrades into a sport. Go has something amazing about how we study pattenrs that are 100's of years old. Many current and active training materiels have up to 400 years old! Go is something were each generation looks at the previous one and builds on that, and its been a very old and iterative process. If go becomes an exercise by how little we lose to machines for, its a major degradation of the purpose of continuing that history. As a pro, you are just working towards the inevitable goal of solving the game, and then we are all free to never play that damn game ever again :)
- nandemo 9y ago
  > In this game, black playing 3-3 (bottom right corner invasion) would have never been played before AlphaGo in the state of human theory. I was taught 15 years ago in my first beginner class how bad doing that is. There are lots of 3-3 invasion joseki, though. Sometimes the context makes the invasion bad (e.g. when you end up giving a lot thickness to the opponent), but I don't see it here. What is it about the neighbouring corners that make the invasion bad?
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    The 3-3 joseki is not considered even. It is supposed to be played in circumstances where thickness is inefficient, or an invasion/normal approach is attractive. Conventional theory is to play the approach move from the right hand, extending the top right formation. Note; something Michael Redmond mentioned in the commentary which is false is that joseki is even. Its not correct: josekis are not even, but are the best recognized patterns given a specific purpose. In a way, straying from joseki means that you failed to apply the best possible sequence for the pattern you wanted to play. There is some subtlety around this topic.
    - nandemo 9y ago
      Thanks for explanation. I haven't studied AlphaGo games against Lee Sedol. I wonder if Ke Jie played that way because he saw AlphaGo playing a good counter to the more usual moves (an approach on the right side).
    - kyyni 9y ago
      Whether a joseki is even or not depends on the context. However, when a joseki is played, it is considered to produce an even result by both players in that specific situation; otherwise, trivially, they would not play that way. The latter was precisely Redmond's point.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        > Whether a joseki is even or not depends on the context The whole point of joseki is its locality. Josekis do not depend on context to be joseki: it could be a bad joseki choice, but what they are, they are locally. When you deviate from joseki you are; a) creating a new joseki b) recognizing that joseki is not applicable in the context, and its better to take a local loss to get a global gain. Josekis are filled with non-even results, but that given a tactical goal, they are the best choice possible.
- backpropaganda 9y ago
  > Can a pro + alphaGo beat AlphaGo consistently? if so, it means humans still have something of an identity. Seems like a hard bet. The human professionals weren't trained to pair with machines to beat other machines. I don't think a human-only skill can even exist due to the nature of the game. Ultimately, each state of the board has a value and this value is estimable using reinforcement learning. Games where a state doesn't have a quantifiable value is where humans could shine. Such games however are not objectively decidable, such as fine arts like painting.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    >Seems like a hard bet. The human professionals weren't trained to pair with machines to beat other machines. I don't think a human-only skill can even exist due to the nature of the game The point is to find that out ! Also, Go has an intricate relationship between strength and beauty. Strong go tends to be beautiful. Does our capacity to perceive beauty give us a leg up on AlphaGo?
    - taneq 9y ago
      Do you not think that you see strong Go moves as beautiful because they're strong, rather than the other way around? Take AlphaGo's unexpected move in the first tournament - no-one thought it was beautiful, just weird, until it played out.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        Its an open question. What is beauty after all...
    - robrenaud 9y ago
      TBH, it's interesting reading your posts. You talk much more like a poet than a mathematician. This is surprising to me when talking advanced play in a strategic game.
  - oconnor663 9y ago
    There's a strong precedent for this in chess, though. I think human + computer is reliably stronger than just computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Chess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Chess
- gizmo686 9y ago
  >And thats why the pair go in this series is actually most interesting to me. Is the pair game really going to test this though? Both sides are human + AlphaGo. Also, I have not read specifically what they are planning for this match, but when I hear "pair go", I think of teammates alternating moves without coordinating. If AlphaGo makes a "weird" move, the human teammate would have a chance to mess up in the follow up.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    I hope its my variation, and not a mockery of the game by alternating moves.
    - Ajedi32 9y ago
      Pair Go is not a "mockery of the game". It's been an official format that's been around for quite some time now: http://www.pairgo.or.jp/setumei/rule.htm http://www.pairgo.or.jp/setumei/rule.htm
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        Pair Go is not go, and neither is 9x9. The whole philosophy of life that you Go demands of you is not present in either of those games. And its a mockery to the truly important questions regarding the future of go to do a gimmicky game like that.

by rw 9y ago

conanbatt 9y ago

> How would you characterize the differences and similarities between AlphaGo and the best human players? The alphago that played Lee Sedol was still very machine-like. But the master series online felt like strong superiority. It started playing some novel moves that being at least reasonable, would make it harder to play against. In a way, it was like the radical new kid with new ideas that shakes up the foundations. So far in this game (move 40~0) i read calmness from white ,a calculated calmness. As if it knew that it would win. Note: in Go, you perceive a lot of feelings from your opponent, as the moves selected express a state of mind or emotion. AlphaGo is getting hard to distinguish from human beings. > How has human play style changed since AlphaGo's introduction? Hard to say, but alphago is definitely changing the fields of study. Professional go really is like brute-forcing the game. A professinoal chooses to go through an unstudied path because he thinks its superior, and then another professional tries to ravage that path. That adversity over professional games is what advances theory. In this game, black playing 3-3 (bottom right corner invasion) would have never been played before AlphaGo in the state of human theory. I was taught 15 years ago in my first beginner class how bad doing that is. > What is the answer to the question you most want to be asked? I guess that the most important question is what is the future of Go. Sure, current professionals will still live their lives by the game, but what is the point of being a professional in something a computer will just be better. As soon as AlphaGo beat lee sedol once last year, i said that the only future of Go right now is finding out if humans still posesss a skill AlphaGo doesnt. And thats why the pair go in this series is actually most interesting to me. Can a pro + alphaGo beat AlphaGo consistently? if so, it means humans still have something of an identity.

nullnilvoid 9y ago
> what is the point of being a professional in something a computer will just be better. Chess was conquered by computers a long long time (in computer time) ago and the popularity of chess has only gone up, not down. There are many professionals making a living out of chess. The art of Go will live on for sure.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  From a professional standpoint, thats pretty terrible. Sure, Catan is also easily solvable, but its played for fun. When you play as a professional you make a commitment to the board, to advance and explore the frontiers of the universe contained in the game. If the bot explores better than you every single time, you are just dedicating your life to trying to beat a calculator at arithmetics.
  - nullnilvoid 9y ago
    At least right now, computers explore the frontiers of the universe only if we humans tell them to. They explore the way we program them to. If I want to explore the frontiers of Go, I would not care about winning or losing. I would enjoy the art, the beauty, and the philosophy of Go.
  - saulrh 9y ago
    It's become a sport, with all that that implies. Training and supporting an olympic sprinter is a multi-million dollar investment. But olympic sprinters haven't been the fastest mode of travel in centuries. If all you want to do is go fast, you buy a really fast car or an aircraft and you go fast. But simply going fast isn't what the sport is about. It's about pushing humans to their limits and seeing what humans can do. It's a race. And chess has become the same. If you just want to win at chess, you ask a computer. But if you want to play a game of chess, or watch a game of chess, it's all about the humans.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      I agree with this point, but to me its a degradation of the game. It degrades into a sport. Go has something amazing about how we study pattenrs that are 100's of years old. Many current and active training materiels have up to 400 years old! Go is something were each generation looks at the previous one and builds on that, and its been a very old and iterative process. If go becomes an exercise by how little we lose to machines for, its a major degradation of the purpose of continuing that history. As a pro, you are just working towards the inevitable goal of solving the game, and then we are all free to never play that damn game ever again :)
nandemo 9y ago
> In this game, black playing 3-3 (bottom right corner invasion) would have never been played before AlphaGo in the state of human theory. I was taught 15 years ago in my first beginner class how bad doing that is. There are lots of 3-3 invasion joseki, though. Sometimes the context makes the invasion bad (e.g. when you end up giving a lot thickness to the opponent), but I don't see it here. What is it about the neighbouring corners that make the invasion bad?
- conanbatt 9y ago
  The 3-3 joseki is not considered even. It is supposed to be played in circumstances where thickness is inefficient, or an invasion/normal approach is attractive. Conventional theory is to play the approach move from the right hand, extending the top right formation. Note; something Michael Redmond mentioned in the commentary which is false is that joseki is even. Its not correct: josekis are not even, but are the best recognized patterns given a specific purpose. In a way, straying from joseki means that you failed to apply the best possible sequence for the pattern you wanted to play. There is some subtlety around this topic.
  - nandemo 9y ago
    Thanks for explanation. I haven't studied AlphaGo games against Lee Sedol. I wonder if Ke Jie played that way because he saw AlphaGo playing a good counter to the more usual moves (an approach on the right side).
  - kyyni 9y ago
    Whether a joseki is even or not depends on the context. However, when a joseki is played, it is considered to produce an even result by both players in that specific situation; otherwise, trivially, they would not play that way. The latter was precisely Redmond's point.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      > Whether a joseki is even or not depends on the context The whole point of joseki is its locality. Josekis do not depend on context to be joseki: it could be a bad joseki choice, but what they are, they are locally. When you deviate from joseki you are; a) creating a new joseki b) recognizing that joseki is not applicable in the context, and its better to take a local loss to get a global gain. Josekis are filled with non-even results, but that given a tactical goal, they are the best choice possible.
backpropaganda 9y ago
> Can a pro + alphaGo beat AlphaGo consistently? if so, it means humans still have something of an identity. Seems like a hard bet. The human professionals weren't trained to pair with machines to beat other machines. I don't think a human-only skill can even exist due to the nature of the game. Ultimately, each state of the board has a value and this value is estimable using reinforcement learning. Games where a state doesn't have a quantifiable value is where humans could shine. Such games however are not objectively decidable, such as fine arts like painting.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  >Seems like a hard bet. The human professionals weren't trained to pair with machines to beat other machines. I don't think a human-only skill can even exist due to the nature of the game The point is to find that out ! Also, Go has an intricate relationship between strength and beauty. Strong go tends to be beautiful. Does our capacity to perceive beauty give us a leg up on AlphaGo?
  - taneq 9y ago
    Do you not think that you see strong Go moves as beautiful because they're strong, rather than the other way around? Take AlphaGo's unexpected move in the first tournament - no-one thought it was beautiful, just weird, until it played out.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      Its an open question. What is beauty after all...
  - robrenaud 9y ago
    TBH, it's interesting reading your posts. You talk much more like a poet than a mathematician. This is surprising to me when talking advanced play in a strategic game.
- oconnor663 9y ago
  There's a strong precedent for this in chess, though. I think human + computer is reliably stronger than just computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Chess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Chess
gizmo686 9y ago
>And thats why the pair go in this series is actually most interesting to me. Is the pair game really going to test this though? Both sides are human + AlphaGo. Also, I have not read specifically what they are planning for this match, but when I hear "pair go", I think of teammates alternating moves without coordinating. If AlphaGo makes a "weird" move, the human teammate would have a chance to mess up in the follow up.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  I hope its my variation, and not a mockery of the game by alternating moves.
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    Pair Go is not a "mockery of the game". It's been an official format that's been around for quite some time now: http://www.pairgo.or.jp/setumei/rule.htm http://www.pairgo.or.jp/setumei/rule.htm
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      Pair Go is not go, and neither is 9x9. The whole philosophy of life that you Go demands of you is not present in either of those games. And its a mockery to the truly important questions regarding the future of go to do a gimmicky game like that.