If very strong AI's become widely available, I hope that the possibility of cheating does not become a significant issue. For example in the german "Go Bundesliga" the rounds are mostly played online via KGS. This is quite convenient as otherwise I would have to travel to Freiburg, Hamburg, Berlin etc. at least once every two months. In a german chess league the same model would be inthinkable. One of the benefits of Go is its friendly, noncommercial character (at least in germany) and the fact that AI cheating does not seem to play a big role, yet.

Well since you are talking about yourself in relation to this, there already ARE programs, widely available, which even running on modest hardware, are far stronger than your current level.

We should note though, this discussion is really just about the possibilities of cheating without need for a human confederate. The model of cheating* doesn't REQUIRE a machine helper unless that "and nobody else knows" is part of the definition. Let's look at possible solutions (and the chess folks COULD maybe use the idea).

Problem: Too expensive, difficult to get the human players together at one tournament location so playing remote. But if players are each coming in remote from a private location, could be cheating (have a helper alongside, whether human or machine).

Possible solution: A number of dispersed official playing sites, thus eliminating the travel burden. These could have "proctors" seeing that cheating is not taking place. In other words, still playing remote, but not in private.

I would still keep playing ... its a very fascinating game. The strongest Go AI is only about 6 dan amateur, no where near defeating a top Go professional in a proper tournament. The best result it has achieved is a 20 point victory against a retired Takemiya Masaki when Takemiya gave it a 4 stone handicap in an exhibition match ...

Regards,

Cai Gengyang

I have lasted a few hours without losing interest so far.

Lets get serious here though despite the sensationalist titles of articles now swarming the internet we all know that while this is a large step for go AI it is no where near a Deep Blue incident.

We can look forward to March though where our champion Lee Sedol will take on the beast known as AI. I am suspecting a crushing victory for humanity but who knows.

There's nothing negative about Go programs getting stronger. It doesn't make humans weaker, and now we have another source to study from.

If there were to be a Go program at the level of Lee Seedol, I would be ecstatic. Can you imagine how fast you would improve playing against a professional level AI? Are the very least, you could get some bad habits hammered out of you pretty quickly.

I hope that Lee Sedol wins!

If AI is better than humans, it will be painful but I won't leave the game.

I wonder what would happen if Data played Spock. Who would win?

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Data, Spock was a terrible Chess player, he could do advanced calculations in his head, tell time. But could not see a mate in a couple of moves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEnxVwppE9M


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFeMD2MfNDg

I always thought it was ironic.....

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Walla Walla GO Club -(on FB)

We play because we enjoy the beauty of the game, the snap and feel of real stones, and meeting interesting people. Hope to see ya there! お願いします!

Anthony

Data can read a little bit further but he still cannot beat counselor Troi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaMf4cb-tAc

Not sure if anybody got stronger in chess because of strong programs. Sure we have better openings but that just might be it. Maybe it is different in go as you can do go further without calculating.

Being a technology loving software developer, I knew that the day when machines would overtake humans in Go would come.

Now that it seems to have arrived, I feel deeply sad about it. And it somehow adds to the frustration, that not too many seem to join me with that emotion.

Will it take away some of my fascination for the game? I will have to wait and see, but I do think so.

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Stay out of my territory! (W. White, aka Heisenberg)

I've heard that many professionals aswell as amateurs, rather than feeling threatened by Alphago's development, they feel excited at the prospect of Alphago discovering new and interesting variations and ways of playing the game. The prospect of computer-discovered joseki isn't far-fetched given Alphago's current level and potential future level.

Go is an eastern game, and although logic and calculation play a significant part, Go can also reflect our human nature and it also embodies and exemplifies interesting philosophical concepts of self-development. I think the attitude of Go players is going to differ greatly from Chess players with regards to Ai. Or perhaps I should say eastern Go players? I don't know. I think if you play it long enough and study hard enough, you eventually change some part of yourself in the process of becoming better at Go. Sometimes you have to pace yourself, defending before attacking, other times jealousy and greed hold you back. Dealing with yourself is a pathway to becoming stronger in Go, and focusing on eliminating a certain bad aspect of your Go, such as jealously invading every opponent territory before making your own, is not just becoming stronger at Go. It can subtly change your outlook on life over time, so that you develop as a human being, not just as a go player. I don't play alot of chess so I can't say for sure, but I don't think chess has nearly the same depth of personal human involvement/development and I don't think chess can reflect aspects of an individual the way Go seems to be able to do.

That may go some way towards explaining why some strong go players don't feel threatened by the prospect of an AI being the strongest player in the world. The human Go players want to learn and get better and they seem to view the AI not as competition, but as a pathway to learn more about Go. It would be interesting to see how strong an Ai can become. How many stones will it be able to give top professionals before it reaches a limit? Will reaching that be where ultimate mastery of the game lies? We don't know. It's like exploring the depths of the sea and the AI being a machine that can potentially dive deeper and see more than we could before, thus giving us more knowledge about this wonderful game that we love.


Also, this is no longer a hypothetical question. Alphago is probably better than almost anybody on these forums and yet we still want to improve and learn, don't we?

I won't lose interest. In-fact, my interest will probably increase if such an AI becomes available commercially, since I could then have a perfect study partner to learn from and analyze games with. It would usher in a completely new and different age of Go, and future pro go players would probably take a leap and become even stronger than the current top players. Many interesting speculations abound. I don't feel sad, I feel excited at what the future might bring

I'll give a credit to the earlier AI that breakthrough many barriers, it changes people's skeptical from 'Can it do?' to 'When?'
Because the AI prove to be helpful to people rather than compete with them (this is the part where IBM's publicity stunt in DeepBlue failed, they fixed it in Watson though), like people will cheer google driverless cars to win at the formula one race, because it means that they can buy a driverless car that is also number one in the world in driving, better than any human driver (I really don't know about F-1, I just make an example)