A computer beat a champion of the strategy game Go for the first time

[MowCowWhoHow III]

Last edited Wed Jan 27, 2016, 07:28 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Mashable

A computer just beat a champion of the complex strategy game Go, a feat that may have enormous implications for artificial intelligence (AI) research.

Go isn't a particularly popular or well-known game in the west, but it is popular worldwide, where it is played by about 40 million. There are Go tournaments that are held, at which regional and world champs are crowned.

One such celebrated player, European Champ Fan Hui, just had his hat handed to him (five games to zip) by AlphaGo, a computer-based Go-playing AI built by Google's DeepMind.

The results of DeepMind's work and the no-holds-barred tournament are detailed in a new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. "It's a historical milestone in artificial intelligence,” said Nature senior editor Tanguy Chouard, who was present at the tournament between Hui and the AlphaGo program.

Read more: http://mashable.com/2016/01/27/google-ai-beats-go-champ/#TByTp2BRPqq6

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Additional Links:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7587/full/nature16961.html

http://www.deepmind.com/alpha-go.html

[PoliticAverse]

1. They still can't beat me at Tic Tac Toe. n/t

[gcomeau]

2. I was about to make a

..."keep it away from the nuclear launch codes" Skynet joke, but honestly recently I've been coming around to this view:

[bvf]

10. Good to hear, and cool cartoon.

The prospects of A.I. don't worry me in the least, and I've personally always thought that skynet got a bum rap.

[drm604]

3. This is a big deal.

Go is much more difficult to describe mathematically than chess and the decision tree grows much more rapidly. I'm anxious to read how they achieved this (if they're even publishing any details).

[Thav]

6. It probably took this long

to figure out exactly HOW to describe it, let alone build the algorithms for it.

I wonder if they added a behavior for "Flip the table and call opponent a cheater."

[drm604]

9. I wonder if they even built an actual Go algorithm.

I suspect that they used some sort of learning algorithm (a neural net or whatever the current state of the art is called) that was trained on the game. I'm relatively certain that's how their autonomous car works, as well as their search engine, so they obviously are on the cutting edge of AI.

[Tab]

14. Done years ago in film

[joshcryer]

16. What's fascinating is the algorithm was self-learning.

It had no conception of what Go was before it started playing. Shame Minksky didn't live a little longer, he would've been in awe.

[iandhr]

4. And I for one welcome our new computer overlords

[Odin2005]

5. And yet they still can't make an AI for the game Civilization that isn't dumber than fuck?

[Thav]

7. Thanks Odin

You owe me a keyboard.

hahahahahaha.

[Odin2005]

11. You're welcome!

[Android3.14]

8. I've played Go on and off for years, and this is a significant step forward for AI

[pokerfan]

12. It was only a matter of time

I first learned to play Go back in the 80s when it was all the rage in computer science departments. Easy to learn, easier than chess even, but played on a 19x19 board. A subtle game that doesn't lend itself to brute force algorithmic approaches it's more akin to art than science and logic.

Once I left university, my Go playing partners scattered as they found jobs across the country. I tried various computer implementations but they were laughably bad. So I went back to chess and backgammon. By the time the Internet came along where I probably could have found challenging opponents I was way too rusty and had moved on to poker.

I still have a beautiful slate and shell set I bought many years ago in San Francisco. It's a very sensuous game, very tactile and pleasing to the eye. I think it's best played live than on the Internet.

[Codeine]

13. That is a beautiful set.

I have a much more budget-minded set that I've picked up so my daughter and I can start playing.

She's very smart but lacks focus; I'm hoping that the easy-to-learn/hard-to-master nature of the game might help dial her in a bit, and my old man brain could certainly stand to learn a new skillset.

[pokerfan]

15. Obviously you want to start on a smaller board

You can block off sections so you are playing on a 9x9 corner and go from there. But don't force it. There as re lots of games out there. I would expose to a variety and see if any grab her interest. Good luck.

FYI, the board in my post is representative of my set. I was posting from my phone and grabbed that image from the web.

[trillion]

17. We are going to have a robot revolution. It will come. I mean the one where robots

take our jobs and it isn't manufacturing.