The value of Go books in the AI age?

Emotional! I will definitly not part from my library. Perhaps the books are nice burial objects too, but I think I prefer to go for two of my nice stones. But first I stay a little longer and go on to enjoy life and baduk

I don't think there's any reason to throw out your library. We're not Leela Zero, we're human beings who can benefit from reading those books. But we're already diving deeply into this topic in a thread you linked in your post, haha.

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Joseki (n): 1. Japanese term meaning "when Jo lives in seki."

Just let me point out that the chess world has had superhuman AI for a quarter of a century now. Only three days ago I was in a bookshop looking at an entire shelf of chess books, including many new titles.

In reply to Marcel:

While you say that AI completely changed the way you view go books, AI has an only moderate impact on my view of go books. The reasons are as follows. After faithfully reading the first few go books, I noticed a great variety of quality with lots to be criticised; AI does not surprise me there. I have always read go books with an open, flexible mind so I am not surprised that AI encourages flexibility where quite a few book variations appear dogmatic. Some books explain theory but usually AI does not.

"Professional players have said that a lot of what is written in books is wrong." Oh, so I am not alone with this opinion;) However, this statement over-generalises and overlooks the great variety of quality. In particular, there are also a few go books conveying truths and nothing but truths (except for the one mandatory typo, whose discovery is the reader's exercise:) ).

"whole-board positions or sequences you might want to verify them with AI": Except for almost settled positions that can be explored completely by studying all the variations with AI, (neural net) AI cannot be used to VERIFY because such AI is not a proof playing engine. Such AI can only be used as a source of move suggestions and playing engine.

"Uncommented game collections are completely useless in the face of game databases.": Not quite. The collections might have games not in the databases yet or might provide useful selections for specific study. Sure, for most other purposes, databases are richer.

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Of course, AI provides alternative input on (preferably global) positions and sequences of incomplete branches of game trees so AI is another tool (besides one's own thinking, human discussion, strong players' input etc.) for studying them. As has been pointed out, such AI tool usage can enable some of us to find some mistakes in some such positions or sequences.

Opening books: comparatively few are good. AI has not changed my opinion that they are good. However, they teach by examples. (Besides a few beginner books with a couple of useful basic opening principles, and I do not mean "corner-sides-center".) Opening books with systematic theory are still missing IMO. This makes it easy to perceive AI exhibiting mistakes in many examples books, such as too great emphasisis on the sides. (It is another topic that many middle game aspects also apply during the opening phase.)

Joseki dictionaries: Ok, I notice that you do not include theory books:) Even so, there are plain variations dictionaries but also dictionaries by other criteria, such as strategic aspects, for which AI has little to offer as criticism because AI does not express theory. Josekis are always evolving, AI has evolved them, old outdated variations are known, AI has rendered some complex not so old variations as wrong because of better complex alternatives, but otherwise a rich basic joseki repertoire has not become superfluous because josekis always have to be applied in positional context and josekis with emphasis of some aspects must always be evaluated in context.

Problem collections: There are two major types: incomplete (very frequent) answers versus complete (rare) answers. AI cannot correct complete answers.

Middle game books / themed books / (why not also endgame books): can be very useful indeed. There are many such topics so may books live forever - AI (of its current kind) does not replace theory books. Generalised AI has a long way to ever write better quality theory books...

"The value of Go books in the AI age"? There is not the only one value. Go books have had extremely varying quality and this is still so in the AI age. Maybe more mediocre quality books are identified faster because the usual suspects (regular reviewers, professional players) cannot identify all fast enough. Now everybody with a smartphone can check dissertations or go book moves for AI-identified obvious mistakes. Can they? Interpretation of AI output still requires go skill. Quality books will survive the AI "test" even if occasional variations are found as worth improving.

(More later.)

I have written before that I would keep my collections of commented games because I find that most problem books lose their value after I have studied the problems many times. Master games have entertainment value beyond what I might learn from the games because of the context of the games. I will never get tired of playing through the games by rivals such as Genjo vs. Chitoku, and Kitani vs. Go Seigen. Reading the history connected with great players enhances the enjoyment of the games. Can contemporary go provide this kind of pleasure? Can we really see this kind of rivalry between modern great players such as Ke Je and Park Jungwhan? There was a sort of rivalry between Gu Li and Lee Sedol but it was shortlived. Indeed, contemporary players seem to reach reach their peaks and fizzle out at quite a young age.

As for chess, I'm not sure what the influence of the ascendancy of computer programs has been but in reality "classical" chess (longish time limits) has been said to be dead. The most recent world championship was decided by rapid games after a short match that tied. Fifty or sixty or more years ago world championships went on until, for example, one player has won twelve games. This meant matches might last for more than 20 games. Blitz matches are too much affected by flawed play. It seems that we effectively have the world chess championship decided by a coin flip. I'm sure this dependence on fast games is to entertain the audience, people who get bored by slow play, and gives up real matches in which the players can think things out and show their real understanding of the game.

It has not been said by me; chess is my first love and I'm still a fan. Certainly the fraction of draws at the top level has been creeping up (it was doing this before the computer age), and the issue is exacerbated in matches, where players naturally try to reduce risk.

Computers have actually made top-level chess both more and less exciting; less because people can do lots of off-line research and try to recreate it at the board (the fact that chess has draws is the main issue here as well, since often Black's research is largely to see how to guide the game to a draw), more because engines have shown that chess can be a lot more concrete and tactical and less driven by abstract strategic principles than people used to think.

In any case I don't think analogies from the draws-in-chess situation are very fruitful since Go doesn't have draws.

A few weeks ago, over on r/baduk, I had some young whippersnapper call my preference for playing with real people over a real set, as opposed to using a form of computer, as some kind of privilege, based on his perceptions of a go set as a rare and expensive luxury and that finding people to play with was a rare occurrence, difficult to schedule.

I did not point out that my go set cost much less than his computer and that access to an internet connection is first world privilege, too. So, no, I'm not giving up my go sets simply because computers offer an opportunity to play go with anyone at any moment.

But BOOKS? You want me to give up my go books? Just because there's a computer program that can beat the snot out of me? Fie. 'Tis a slippery slope, ladies and gentlemen, slippery, I say! First they come for your books, then they come for your stones.

However, if you're dumping your apparently useless go books, I'll take 'em. All of them.

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David Bogie, Boise ID
I play go, I ride a recumbent, of course I use Macintosh.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

There is a related thread "The value of particular Go books in the AI age" at
https://lifein19x19.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=17132

I have always considered go books as a source of inspiration. They are my friends, they tell things, they explain things. They help me to play better go or at least try...

AIs are still a little bit lacking in this direction.

Cheers,
Vesa