I like playing people because it gives an illusion that Go is a social activity.

TominNJ, I understand exactly how you feel. It is much easier on the ego getting beat by a machine that can't possibly know you than by some other person that you might meet some day. I will agree with most of the posters that playing computer programs will lead to some bad habits. Unless you are striving to reach upper level play, "Who cares about one more flaw to go-playing strength"? Enjoyment of the game is what I find most important. I enjoy spending more time on solving problems than actually playing the game. That will probably change in the future, but I am not really concerned.
Here is one very compelling reason to try to play human players on a regular basis. By doing so you are adding to the community, and you might encourage one more player to play because of an increased availability of games. It is just a thought. I still can't emphasize enough that your personal enjoyment is the most important factor in how you spend your go playing time.

Its not just the bad habits that you pick up from playing computer go. Playing humans let you see their train of thoughts, their evaluation of the board, and their mistakes even, and against that you deploy and refine your own ideas. Playing computer go seems more like a "play your own best game" kind of exercise. I believe you really lose out both in terms of improvement and enjoyment if the majority of your games are against bots and not humans.

I came to play go just because there are no strong computer programs.

This makes the game interesting for both, players and programmers.

very interesting thread. i understand the original poster perfectly: i have first discovered go long time ago, and fell in love with it's elegance and finesse, and (well, you all know what's so great about go), i had nobody to play though, so i had to quickly give up. now i'm "back", and amongst many changes, gnugo has become respectably strong (last time i had checked it was "lame beginner, any human can beat it after playing for a month or so"), imagine my shock and horror when i first tried to play it, and it destroyed me. now i'm at the point where i don't even play gnugo anymore, i just enjoy watching high dan games (yeah, i know: waste of time, i probably don't understand a 100th of what's going on). i'll get over it i'm sure.

that being said, i think i enjoy more playing humans than gnugo, and actually my ego is much more hurt when i get destroyed by a computer (computers were supposed to suck at go, right?). i have lost games on igs literally grinning "that was awesome, wow!", i never felt angry, except when i made really stupid mistakes i could see immediately after (and i was angry at myself for not paying attention). the only reason i like playing gnugo is time: gnugo is infinitely patient, and i can even play it when i'm doing something else (or when i'm likely to be interrupted beyond my control, and forced to stop the game for a while -- you cannot do that to a human), but other than that, seriously, i would get destroyed over and over again, and want more, i enjoyed losing to stronger players more than winning to weaker ones, i just enjoyed the game, the only thing that made me sad was the feeling of not putting up a decent enough fight (and probably boring the hell out of my opponents with my stupid moves), which is i think the main reason i haven't even tried to play humans again in the past months (the idea was: beat gnugo first, and play humans later).

so i guess the bottom line is, as most people already said: you're supposed to enjoy it, i never played to win, tbh. once you realize how far say 15k is from 1d (not to mention 5d), it seems silly to be focused on winning. i personally just enjoy the game, ego never comes into it (except when playing against gnugo ). makes any sense?