4 ms·

How far out are AlphaGo's ideas? Are they radically different, or rooted in human conventions?

conanbatt 9y ago
There is a famous player called Takemiya Masaki. His style of game is called Cosmic Go, and his games were some of the most beautiful games in history. He had an amazing ability of making this natural flows and building massive central territory: something against conventional theory. His style died eventually because no-one could play like he did. Some professionals even mentioned that such a style could not be played unless Takemiya Masaki had amazing reading skills. Alpha Go has amazing reading skills. So he can actually easily afford to play such a style. Its like the revamping of a theory we all know its playable but as humans have a hard time having a winning rate with. On the other hand, alphago is definitely playing moves that are plain bad for conventional theory, but manages to get good positions regardless. Its possible that alphago is just more thorough, and human pattern matching naturally discard moves that most of the time are bad.
- gallerdude 9y ago
  Thank you for your in-depth and engaging answers!
- pcnix 9y ago
  Could you suggest a book that explores go history in a way a layman can follow? The way you explain it, it seems extremely interesting.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    I dont know about history, but a book i can recommend is First Kyu. Very short and easy read about an aspiring professional play in Korea in the 50's. It containes many of the woes that haunt pro players.
- snarf21 9y ago
  I only know a little about Go but you mentioned something here that I have discussed with a Go friend, reading skills. Is this the main reason AlphaGo is winning? It never gets tired and never misses a board position. It seems like computers finally have enough speed and memory to never miss a board position and humans (as a group) will never be able to match it, and only get further behind. Thoughts?
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    AlphaGo is only made of reading skill :) It doesnt have strategic considerations. The question is if those strategic considerations are reading heuristics or just plan garbage. Thats why i propose Human + AlphaGo vs AlphaGo.
    - bmh100 9y ago
      I don't understand your statement that AlphaGo doesn't have strategic considerations. Its neural networks evaluate positions for strength, including long-term (strategic) potential.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        ITs another philosophical debate about what is strategy and what is tactics. Tactics is a specific sequence of attack, with very well defined steps and a defined outcome. A strategy is a general guideline to guide overall decisions, with a general goal but without a specific objective. AlphaGo cant say "I will play a territorial game from now on because the strength of my positions is enough to reduce the opponents influence". Alpha can say "Territory 56%, Influence 54%". Alpha Go makes tactical decisions.
        bmh100 9y ago
        I don't believe AlphaGo's MCTS, policy NN, or value NN support your last paragraph. Could you please explain what it is about Somehow construction that supports strategic categories with associated probabilities or why only tactical decisions are being made? I'm a bit confused by your last statement actually. Are you saying AlphaGo decides how much to emphasize certain strategic goals or that it doesn't (only makes tactical decisions)?
JoeDaDude 9y ago
I'd be interested to see if something like what happened in computer backgammon occurs with AlphaGo in which long standing assumptions about how to play prove to be wrong. TD-gammon, a computer backgammon player, explored "strategies that humans previously hadn't considered" [1] and led the backgammon playing community to re-evaluate some rules of thumb they used in opening moves [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TD-Gammon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TD-Gammon [2] http://www.bkgm.com/articles/tesauro/tdl.html http://www.bkgm.com/articles/tesauro/tdl.html

There is a famous player called Takemiya Masaki. His style of game is called Cosmic Go, and his games were some of the most beautiful games in history. He had an amazing ability of making this natural flows and building massive central territory: something against conventional theory. His style died eventually because no-one could play like he did. Some professionals even mentioned that such a style could not be played unless Takemiya Masaki had amazing reading skills. Alpha Go has amazing reading skills. So he can actually easily afford to play such a style. Its like the revamping of a theory we all know its playable but as humans have a hard time having a winning rate with. On the other hand, alphago is definitely playing moves that are plain bad for conventional theory, but manages to get good positions regardless. Its possible that alphago is just more thorough, and human pattern matching naturally discard moves that most of the time are bad.

gallerdude 9y ago
Thank you for your in-depth and engaging answers!
pcnix 9y ago
Could you suggest a book that explores go history in a way a layman can follow? The way you explain it, it seems extremely interesting.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  I dont know about history, but a book i can recommend is First Kyu. Very short and easy read about an aspiring professional play in Korea in the 50's. It containes many of the woes that haunt pro players.
snarf21 9y ago
I only know a little about Go but you mentioned something here that I have discussed with a Go friend, reading skills. Is this the main reason AlphaGo is winning? It never gets tired and never misses a board position. It seems like computers finally have enough speed and memory to never miss a board position and humans (as a group) will never be able to match it, and only get further behind. Thoughts?
- conanbatt 9y ago
  AlphaGo is only made of reading skill :) It doesnt have strategic considerations. The question is if those strategic considerations are reading heuristics or just plan garbage. Thats why i propose Human + AlphaGo vs AlphaGo.
  - bmh100 9y ago
    I don't understand your statement that AlphaGo doesn't have strategic considerations. Its neural networks evaluate positions for strength, including long-term (strategic) potential.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      ITs another philosophical debate about what is strategy and what is tactics. Tactics is a specific sequence of attack, with very well defined steps and a defined outcome. A strategy is a general guideline to guide overall decisions, with a general goal but without a specific objective. AlphaGo cant say "I will play a territorial game from now on because the strength of my positions is enough to reduce the opponents influence". Alpha can say "Territory 56%, Influence 54%". Alpha Go makes tactical decisions.
      - bmh100 9y ago
        I don't believe AlphaGo's MCTS, policy NN, or value NN support your last paragraph. Could you please explain what it is about Somehow construction that supports strategic categories with associated probabilities or why only tactical decisions are being made? I'm a bit confused by your last statement actually. Are you saying AlphaGo decides how much to emphasize certain strategic goals or that it doesn't (only makes tactical decisions)?

JoeDaDude 9y ago

I'd be interested to see if something like what happened in computer backgammon occurs with AlphaGo in which long standing assumptions about how to play prove to be wrong. TD-gammon, a computer backgammon player, explored "strategies that humans previously hadn't considered" [1] and led the backgammon playing community to re-evaluate some rules of thumb they used in opening moves [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TD-Gammon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TD-Gammon [2] http://www.bkgm.com/articles/tesauro/tdl.html http://www.bkgm.com/articles/tesauro/tdl.html