
In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future? - muloka
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/in-the-age-of-google-deepmind-do-the-young-go-prodigies-of-asia-have-a-future
======
chenglou
I mean, that's like asking whether marathon runners have a future now that
we've got cars. Exercising one's brain/having pleasure through the game could
be an end in itself, and is independent of how machines perform.

~~~
conanbatt
Take it from someone that walked the path of becoming a professional Go
player, being a professional and an amateur are completely different attitudes
towards the game. Tic Tac Toe is solved, but can be fun to play when you are a
kid. Amateur Go playing can still exist, but the goal of strength is more
instilled in the path to pro-ship.

This really suggests that going the path of being the strongest is no longer
sensical. Why would a human try to be the best calculator in the world,
knowing it will never beat any calculator ever? Just to prove itself to other
human caculator wannabes? Senseless.

This is a real paradigm shift and we still need to understand what to do. But
obliviously ignore AlphaGo is akin should be unfathomable for a professional
aspiring player.

As a professional, the first question to ask is what will AlphaGo bring to Go
Theory. We still dont know how much stronger it is than Lee Sedol (or how far
it is from "God"). Pushing it to its limits will show us insights we havent
found yet and we will update ourselves as players to the most current theory.

The second step is answering the following question: Can human + AlphaGo beat
Alpha Go? A human potentiated with AlphaGo's reading power can intuitively
pick variations that would give it an edge? If so, we have found that Go still
harbors a human secret that is jsut overly compensated by reading.

The last step would be, even if human participation gives negligible results,
can human + Alpha Go create better games than Alpha Go?

~~~
yannyu
Anything that Go has to go through as a result of AlphaGo, Chess has already
gone through with Stockfish and its predecessors (such as Deep Blue, though I
realize it's not exactly the same).

Is there a particular reason why a chess computer would be any more
undefeatable than a Go computer? Even though Kasparov lost, Nakamura destroyed
Rybka 10 years later. Now that we have a competitive Go AI, isn't it likely
the game of Go will shift and be even more competitive since now more players
can get world-class practice and suggestions on their own?

~~~
conanbatt
If I understand AlphaGo correctly, I don't think that any human in the future
will be able to beat the AlphaGo today. AlphaGo didn't beat Lee Sedol because
it played new and marvelous moves we need to understand.

It played better because it knew the exact consequences of the options it was
presented, and could calculate it and make better decisions than human
intuition. No human can develop that reading power, and its not reasonable to
think a human in the future will have intuition that beats the calculation of
AlphaGo.

Since reading, the core ability of Go can now be completely replaced by a
computer, the question is what others decisions can a player make. Can he make
strategic decisions better than AlphaGo? Can intuition still best AlphaGo
calculating capacity?

Eventually, we can think that we will have computational power to actually
solve Go, and if there is any sense at all to play Go after that, its about
finding those beautiful games, from beginning to end, that provoke emotions
and turn Go purely into art.

------
Animats
From the article: "It is estimated that, of South Korea’s three hundred and
twenty pros, only around fifty are able to earn a living on tournament
winnings." This isn't going to result in massive unemployment.

However, cheating with computer assistance is likely to become a problem, as
it is in chess.[1] (The state of the art in computer chess is now roughly at
"laptop with off the shelf program can curb-stomp human world champion.")

[1] [http://en.chessbase.com/post/yet-another-case-of-cheating-
in...](http://en.chessbase.com/post/yet-another-case-of-cheating-in-chess)

~~~
zitterbewegung
What kind of configuration would you need to run the DeepMind setup? Looking
at the wikipedia page if we assume the setup [1] there then it seems like at
this time it would be out of the realm of feasibility at this time of setting
up this software for cheating.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo#Hardware](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo#Hardware)

~~~
aikinai
Google's infrastructure gives it an extra boost, but even the single machine
version can beat the distributed version 25% of the time.[1]

[1]
[https://twitter.com/demishassabis/status/708489093676568576](https://twitter.com/demishassabis/status/708489093676568576)

~~~
wheresmypasswd
The nice thing about most of this deep learning stuff is that you can use a
million machine hours to train your model, and almost no time to make an
evaluation. So the single machine version has all of the pattern recognition
given to it by the cluster, but a few ply less tree search depth.

So to me this underscores the relative importance of the deep learning model
vs the tree search.

------
shas3
The game play among human competitors is sure to change just as in chess, as
new players will train on AlphaGo, etc. whose gameplay will differ
significantly from accepted norms in a purely human playing field. For
instance, chess programs can plan and optimize to a much further depth (number
of moves) in terms of strategy. So, newer players like Carlsen, etc. play
differently these days than older ones like Anand, etc. [1]

[1] [http://noenthuda.com/blog/2016/03/11/how-computers-have-
chan...](http://noenthuda.com/blog/2016/03/11/how-computers-have-changed-
chess/)

~~~
reidacdc
This is already happening. Down at the end of a recent Wired article about Fan
Hui, the European champion who lost to AlphaGo recently, it mentions that his
close interactions with the software has changed his view of the game, and his
ranking has also moved, from 633 "into the 300s".

The relevant paragraph is the one with the heading "Machine changes human", at
the end.

[http://www.wired.com/2016/03/sadness-beauty-watching-
googles...](http://www.wired.com/2016/03/sadness-beauty-watching-googles-ai-
play-go/)

------
fiatmoney
The safest best for sectors of the economy that will continue to prosper under
a hard-AI regime are those that involve making humans, especially the rich
(eg, owners of AI-based companies) feel happy via human interactions. Go
instructors are such a niche.

Actually I would expect game-players and game-instructors to do better than
the median profession under such a scenario, because playing games against
other humans for entertainment & pure enjoyment of competition is a very human
pursuit.

~~~
meric
If that's the future, then I'd say AI companies should have to be at least 49%
owned by a trust fund in which every citizen automatically has a share.

~~~
fiatmoney
In the limit near every company becomes an AI company.

------
chj
I wouldn't write those professionals off so easily. People barely knows
AlphaGo until now. Once they start learning about AlphaGo's behaviors, they
may be able to come out with new tactics. No doubt it will be a collective
effort from the Go community, no one can beat the machine alone.

~~~
grondilu
It's true that humans should be allowed a rematch. And all professionals Go
players could be playing in concert.

Hell, Google should organize a "AlphaGo against the world" on internet.

~~~
nindalf
Can't wait for Twitch Plays Go.

------
carbocation
In the age of Deep Blue, do young chess prodigies have a future?

~~~
verroq
In the age of high tech robot replacements, do unskilled factory workers have
a future?

~~~
hemdawgz
This one unfortunately isn't analogous with the others.

------
Pamar
In general I'd suggest reading "The player of Games" by Banks. A Culture novel
that explores why would someone care about being good at "boardgames" in a
universe where even the dumbest appliance could easily outperform any human.

~~~
JabavuAdams
One thing that Banks never addressed in his Culture novels was humans wanting
to become Minds. I mean if I live in a society where there are humanoids and
Minds, then I want to be a Mind, with a stream-of-consciousness that includes
the transition. Wouldn't this be true of many people who are in to science?

~~~
saalweachter
Didn't the Minds manipulate culture to channel their charges in various
directions (ie, against war-like tendencies)? Maybe ascension was one of the
thought-patterns they engineered out.

~~~
Filligree
They did. It isn't explicitly stated, to the best of my knowledge, but the
Minds are smart enough that they could easily have done that—and were shown to
engineer other parts of the society, such as their deathism.

Humanity has very limited purpose in the Culture. On the surface, it looks
nice, but they're effectively pets. Their willingness to ascend was cut off
right along with their willingness to live.

All of which is done by social engineering. If you _want_ to go the
intelligence-enhancement route, they'll help. They just make sure that very
few people do.

~~~
david-given
That's true, but it's also rather deceptive. Humans are the fundamental core
of the Culture; its basic purpose is to look after human-scale people, and
this shapes everything it does --- the Culture's a bit suspicious of ascension
because they feel it's an abandonment of their responsibilities. Humans are,
in effect, the Minds' religion.

And dying is just one of several end-of-life events you can pick, if you want
to (including opting out entirely). Naturally it's the one we tend to focus
on, because it's the only one we currently have, but the Culture's got lots.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Right, this is where things break down. It's fictional universe, after all.

What are the negative effects of having more Minds? Resource depletion?

If your cat suddenly tells you that what it wants more than anything is to
learn General Relativity, then either you're having a psychotic episode, or
you have to question how benevolent and ethical your coddling is for your
fuzzy wuzzy slave animal.

------
apalmer
I would think this has to be a serious inflection point... As far learning how
to think, strategize, competing with friends, etc go will remain. However for
the extremely few say 100 really top level players, this has to in a way be
disheartening... at that level its about competition, and the will, discipline
and ability to advance... it has to be disheartening to know you will never be
the best.

Its kind of like climbing mount Everest 'because it was there'. Its just not
'there' anymore.

~~~
taneq
It'd be like climbing Everest on foot in the shadow of a cable car which runs
to the top. Still a clallenge, but one that feels pointless.

------
partycoder
Go has still much more to offer as it is not even close to be a solved game.
Additionally, there's handicap Go, and additionally handicaps can be applied
to the machine. Go offers the possibility for players of different levels to
enjoy a game.

------
dinkumthinkum
It seems like the authors are trying to use the latest story in the Go world
to write about how all the jobs will be replaced by neural networks or
something. I mean, people still throw javelins even though it is fairly
trivial to build a machine that shoots a projectile farther than a human can
throw.

We still enjoy trivia games even though it is easy to google the answers. I
dunno, I think it is a bit of a stretch to think AlphaGo has ended serious
competitive human Go.

------
geebee
I'm pretty sure humans will not stop playing go at intensely high levels just
because a computer can beat them.

The analogy to chess is an interesting one, though, not quite as
straightforward as it may seem. Chess, when it was first conquered by
computers a couple of decades ago, was a triumph of computer vs human, sure,
but in such a different way from the way humans play it. Chess is amenable to
brute force search in a way that go isn't (though I understand the chess
programs really aren't pure brute force), but human chess players don't (as
far as I know) really don't play chess in a brute force way, they rely in
intuition, experience, and even a bit of gambling and hedging whether their
opponent will "see" or "realize" the strategy in time.

As a result, the chess programs were winning through a "reasoning" process
that was very different from what you experience watching people play the
game. Something very different is going on when humans play, which makes it
interesting - in that sense you can sort of dismiss the machine as playing a
different game, albeit one with the same board, pieces, and rules. Instead,
it's a giant calculation that happens to beat the more intuitive approach once
you can search and score X positions per second through an entirely alternate
approach to the game.

This current breakthrough with go sounds different, in that it _may_ mean that
computers now play go in a way that is much more similar to the way humans
play it (it would be interesting to see if a chess program designed more like
the go program would have a huge edge over the brute force search approach).
Or, if not the same, perhaps a way that is equally if not more interesting.

I'm kind of bummed that I'm out of my depth on this one (I don't know go or
chess well enough to really say), but it's an interesting question.

------
mark_l_watson
Good writing.

I also expect that more people will start playing Go, or like me, get a
renewed interest in the game.

I read that Lee Sidol is planning on retiring from active play in a few years
and move to the USA to evangelize the game in the West.

I played the South Korean national champion and the women's world champion in
handicapped exhibition games in the 1970s. It would be awesome to get to do
the same with Lee Sidol!

------
sandGorgon
This reminds me of the 1947 story "With Folded Hands" \-
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands)
\- where a post apocalyptic future is the consequence of full automation and
robotics . people have no purpose left.

------
burritofanatic
Well, absolutely, if they're talking about Golang that is. In all seriousness,
a computer did fairly well on Jeopardy some years back, and we're still
watching the game show as it's still quite relevant.

~~~
eru
And a trained human + computer with internet access (Google search!) could
beat the best humans in Jeopardy for quite a while now.

~~~
chongli
Not really. Jeopardy is all about buzzer timing[0]. With Google search, you're
always going to be slow on the buzzer. That's okay, though. The actual trivia
is pretty easy. It's designed this way to be accessible to the average TV
viewer.

[0] [http://www.pisspoor.com/buzzer.html](http://www.pisspoor.com/buzzer.html)

~~~
furyofantares
Buzz then search. I think players tend to work this way too, buzzing as soon
as they feel like they'll know the answer, but before they actually
consciously have it.

------
mirimir
Maybe if they learn to collaborate with AI. Or eventually, get implants. As
all serious professionals will need to do. That may seem far-fetched, but how
many runners compete with bicyclists?

~~~
makapuf
Well you don't see pro runners get bicycle implants (that would hurt)

~~~
mirimir
True. But people do get surrogate limbs.

------
golergka
TL;DR: several personal stories about people who invested a lot of time in the
game, general information about go in general as well as what's going on right
now, and finally, a semi-answer with a quote:

“A dolphin swims faster than Michael Phelps, but we still want to see how fast
he can go,” Lockhart said. “We’re humans and we care about other humans and
what they can do.”

Too many words, too little information for one article.

------
beatpanda
Here's a related and possibly more interesting question nobody seems to be
asking -- in the age of robotics and artificial intelligence, does
exploitation of workers and environmental catastrophe at the point of
extraction of the materials we use to build computers and robots have a
future?

And if the answer is yes, why isn't anyone trying to use robots for that
purpose?

~~~
eru
People are automating resource gathering all the time. See eg
[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-18/rio-tinto-opens-
worlds...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-18/rio-tinto-opens-worlds-first-
automated-mine/6863814)

------
mapt
All AI does is remove the ability to progress through the ranks accurately via
online play. Unregulated online competition will suddenly become a bumpy road
full of Elo-breaking presences.

I gather this may be a Big Deal, but except insofar as it kills the sport by a
thousand cuts, 'Young Go Prodigies' have nothing to worry about.

~~~
eru
The computer will be able to give you an Elo number just by looking at all the
moves you did in a few games.

Since the computer can tell for every single move whether you played perfectly
or if not, by how much you decreased your chances of winning against perfect
competition, you'll be able to get a hundred signals out of a game into your
elo calculation, instead of just one win/loss condition.

They already do that for catching cheaters in chess. In essence, you treat the
positions that occur in a game not as a logical sequence, but as a series of
multiple-choice questions.

~~~
mapt
Color me skeptical. The value of things like Elo is they provide a ramping
scale with some degree of statistical significance, because they cover play
over many games. I don't think a computer is going to be able to extrapolate
with a high degree of confidence, because human play is variable from game to
game and long-run strategies are non-obvious constructs for the computer.

You're thinking in terms of 'The AI has solved Go mathematically', but that's
not the case; Just because you can run a Monte Carlo best-choice-
picker/guesser algorithm doesn't mean you can meaningfully rank how deliberate
choices compare with each other more than a few plays away.

~~~
eru
Long-run strategies are a human crutch. It's easiest to see when you solved a
game mathematically, that you can just value positions independently.

Go hasn't been solved to that level, but it's apparently been solved to higher
level than humans ever reached.

I am just parroting
[http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12677/763](http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12677/763)
here, so I might as well quote:

"To catch an alleged cheater, Regan takes a set of chess positions played by a
single player—ideally 200 or more but his analysis can work with as few as
20—and treats each position like a ques­tion on a multiple-choice exam. The
score on this exam translates to an Elo rating, a score Regan calls an
Intrinsic Perfor­mance Rating (IPR)."

This approach also allows to score historic players absolutely, instead of
only relatively and trying to find sets of overlapping lifetimes until we
reach the modern age.

------
bitmapbrother
This article is trying to answer a question no one asked. Of course Go
prodigies will always have a future regardless of how well computers become at
playing Go. When we start handling out championships, officially ranking
computer programs and awarding prize money to them then we can have this
conversation.

------
ilaksh
Why should I really be concerned about Go prodigies? Aren't there a lot more
ordinary people being affected by technological unemployment who have much
fewer resources to fall back on?

~~~
mirimir
Such as lawyers. And truck drivers, of course.

But there's so much more to this than human obsolescence. This is the cusp of
a new stage in evolution.

------
locusm
I would love to see AlphaGo vs itself.

------
partycoder
In the age of computers and pocket calculators, does mental calculation have a
future?

------
itsAllTrue
Forgive me, but the headline, all by itself, left me thinking:

    
    
      Why are there so many young programmers adopting the Go 
      programming language, throughout Asia, exclusively?

------
sterl
...Have Chess players had a future...?!

------
jtth
This is stupid.

