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AlphaGo beats the world champion Lee Sedol in first of five matches

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Re: AlphaGo beats the world champion Lee Sedol in first of five matches

#441

I was at the 2003 match of Garry Kasparov vs Deep Junior -- the strongest chess player of all time vs what was at that point the strongest chess playing computer in history. Kasparov drew that match, but it was clear it was the last stand of homo sapiens in the man vs machine chess battle. Back then, people took solace in the game of Go. Many boldly and confidently predicted we wouldn't see a computer beat the Go wor…

> Many boldly and confidently predicted we wouldn't see a computer beat the Go world champion in our lifetimes. Can anyone provide some written references to this effect? Last time I searched (extensively), I couldn't really find anyone saying this.

What kind of source do you want? It's a saying in the go community, people believed (including me) that a bot couldn't beat a human in our lifetime, some people had more extreme view and thought that it would never be possible.

Re: AlphaGo beats the world champion Lee Sedol in first of five matches

#442
post #440
post #151

Beating humans in Go is, in itself, not all that exciting. Go bots have been beating strong humans for quite some time now (just not the very top humans). There are other implications that make this AlphaGo progress super exciting though. Go captures strategic elements that go well beyond the microcosm of one nerdy board game. That's the real reason Go has been around for >2,000 years, and why this AI progress is rel…

I disagree with this due to the rate of AlphaGo's progress. Consider CrazyStone which was the previous state of the art in Go computers. That program reached 5dan after many years of development and has not shown any signs of being able to reach Lee Sedol level (9dan). In October of this year AlphaGo beat a 5dan player, bringing it into the range of CrazyStone. Only ~6 months later it beats a 9dan player which means…

Edit: Fan Hui was only 2dan so this is even more insane.

Re: AlphaGo beats the world champion Lee Sedol in first of five matches

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to the AI effect! Every time AI makes an accomplishment, it is disregarded. The goalposts are perpetually moved. "AI is whatever computers can't do yet." People said for years that Go would never be beaten in our lifetime. They said this because Go has a massive search space. It can't be beaten by brute force search. It requires intelligence, the ability to learn and recognize patterns. And it requires doing…

The "moving goalposts" argument is one that really needs to die. It's a classic empty statement. Just because other people made in the past does not mean it's wrong. It proves nothing. People also predicted AGI many times over-optimistically; probably just as often as people have moved goalposts.

I don't know what you are trying to say. I'm making an observation that whenever AI beats a milestone, there are a bunch of pessimists that come out and say "but obviously X was beatable by stupid algorithms. I will beleive AI is making progress when it beats Y!"

Those arguments absolutely are wrong. For one thing it's classic hindsight bias. When you make a wrong prediction, you should update your model, not come up with justifications why your model doesn't need to change.

But second, it's another bias, where nothing looks like AI, or AI progress. People assume that intelligence should be complicated, that simple algorithms can't have intelligent behavior. That human intelligence has some kind of mystical attribute that can't be replicated in a computer.

Re: AlphaGo beats the world champion Lee Sedol in first of five matches

#446
post #387

Terrific accomplishment. Just a question to throw out there - does anyone feel like statements like this one "But the game [go] is far more complex than chess, and playing it requires a high level of feeling and intuition about an opponent’s next moves." … seem to show a lack of understanding of both go and chess? I understand there may be some cross-sports trash talking, but chess, played at a high level by humans ,…

But aren't they talking about the games as they apply to computers?

Re: AlphaGo beats the world champion Lee Sedol in first of five matches

#447
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skill related. I'd be interesting to see how quickly driving AIs take to beat the best human drivers, in a weight-equal vehicle. An algorithmic competitor in formula one, would be interesting.

Would be a stomp for the computer; they don't have to respect G-forces.

Racing cars aren't limited by the driver's G tolerance, I don't think. They generate 4G-ish, from what I hear on the F1 coverage. Well within driver capabilities. Their G is limited by tyres.

Re: AlphaGo beats the world champion Lee Sedol in first of five matches

#448
post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to the AI effect! Every time AI makes an accomplishment, it is disregarded. The goalposts are perpetually moved. "AI is whatever computers can't do yet." People said for years that Go would never be beaten in our lifetime. They said this because Go has a massive search space. It can't be beaten by brute force search. It requires intelligence, the ability to learn and recognize patterns. And it requires doing…

As far as I know the goal post of Turing test has never moved.

That's because it hasn't been beaten yet! As soon as a chatbot beats a turing test, there will be a lot of AI deniers come out and say that the Turing test doesn't measure 'real' intelligence, or isn't a valid test for .

I know this is true, because there are already a lot of people that think the Turing test isn't valid. They believe it could be beaten by a stupid chatbot, or deception on the part of AI. Just search for past discussions on HN of the Turing test, it comes up a lot.

There is no universally accepted benchmark of AI. Let alone a benchmark for AI progress, which is what Go is.

No one claimed that Go would require a human level AI to beat. But I am claiming that beating it represents progress towards that goal. Whereas passing the Turing test won't happen until the very end. Beating games like Go are little milestones along the journey.

Re: AlphaGo beats the world champion Lee Sedol in first of five matches

#449
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2003 match was a brute force approach. AlphaGo's architecture resembles much closer to how humans think and learn. I initially learned Go to be able to have some chance of an AI. I then had some transformative experiences that coincided with my early kyu learning of basic Go lessons. On of the big lessons in Go is to learn how to let go of something. Taking solace in anything on the Go board is one of the blocks…

Is the Monte Carlo approach specific to Go in terms of A.I. challenges? Or is the Monte Carlo approach gaining traction in other A.I. problems as well? I am tremendously unfamiliar with recent A.I developments.

Monte Carlo Tree Search is a key technique in previous computer Go programs (and other games). The improvement here was using the deep learning network as the value function to evaluate nodes in the tree and the policy network to determine the search order.

Re: AlphaGo beats the world champion Lee Sedol in first of five matches

#450
post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many boldly and confidently predicted we wouldn't see a computer beat the Go world champion in our lifetimes. Can anyone provide some written references to this effect? Last time I searched (extensively), I couldn't really find anyone saying this.

What kind of source do you want? It's a saying in the go community, people believed (including me) that a bot couldn't beat a human in our lifetime, some people had more extreme view and thought that it would never be possible.

Anything written. I'll be particularly happy with higher "quality" sources -- books, quotations in newspapers, etc. -- but honestly, I'm not that picky and will accept an anonymous comment on a random forum.
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