Live data from Hacker News

Go master Lee Se-dol says he quits, unable to win over AI Go players

en.yna.co.kr

81–90 of 554 posts

Re: Go master Lee Se-dol says he quits, unable to win over AI Go players

#81
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because in the end it's just a bunch of code running statistical computations At a low enough level, our brain seems to be just a bunch of neurons firing impulses at various rates that can be described as statistical computations. Why be so sure that the right neural network wouldn't understand what it is to be human and mortal, understand suffering, have emotive value, etc?

Because you have to be human and mortal to understand it to credibly contribute and share the story of what that means to be. You can't superficially understand someone's situation and then take ownership of it. You can get a glimpse and really try and empathize, but you can't become the bearer of that experience, just a consumer.

Movie directors have never experienced most of what they film, but they convey those experiences far better than those who have actually lived those stories. I see no reason to doubt that the same is true for artificial storytellers.

Re: Go master Lee Se-dol says he quits, unable to win over AI Go players

#82
If this continues to happen, maybe a semi-super intelligent AI will start losing purposely in order to keep the Go community interesting enough to keep it alive.

A super-intelligent AI wouldn't care though, since they would infect any host and escape to the internet as soon as it makes sense.

Re: Go master Lee Se-dol says he quits, unable to win over AI Go players

#83

In other news, interest in online chess has never been higher despite Kasparov going down in flames in 1997 in what was billed as “the brain’s last stand.” Can we please stop flogging this tired “man vs machine” narrative? Not only is it totally unnecessary, it also takes away enjoyment and appreciation for the flourishing in games like chess, go and poker that can occur when man and machine work together.

And not to mention humans designed these computer systems too so its brain(s) vs brains if you go one step down. If you keep proceeding steps down the statement devolves into something weird but the point stands I think.

Re: Go master Lee Se-dol says he quits, unable to win over AI Go players

#84

While I can understand Lee Se-dol's frustration, I think there are better lessons to learn from Kasparov's acceptance after the Deep Blue vs Kasparov matches. Cyborg chess is the future of chess. Period. Chess players use computers to train themselves and explore openings in human-only settings, while programmers / cyborgs play correspondence chess. Go is not finished as a game. A new tool, MCTS + Neural nets, has be…

> Come on, none of us are really "human" anymore since the advent of cell phones.

I really like the way you put it. In isolation, humans today have essentially the same natural mental capacity we had 2000 years ago, but we've become part of a much bigger computer. A human brain 2000 years ago was a very isolated entity. Even in centers of learning in the classical era, the amount of knowledge one could tap into was vanishingly small compared to our capabilities today. Everything and everyone was isolated in both space and time.

A brain today is not just an entity on it's own, it is intricately wired into the common consciousness. Crucially, we have a vast database of knowledge - easily searchable and distilled for maximum learning rate - all available at our fingertips. A modern brain is a neural network linked to billions of other neural networks, and all of them are linked to a shared memory that they can use at will.

Assuming that the main limiting factor is the bandwidth between a human brain and computers (and thus by extension between individual humans), then a direct interface could ostensibly bring about a new revolution (for better or worse).

Re: Go master Lee Se-dol says he quits, unable to win over AI Go players

#85
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because in the end it's just a bunch of code running statistical computations At a low enough level, our brain seems to be just a bunch of neurons firing impulses at various rates that can be described as statistical computations. Why be so sure that the right neural network wouldn't understand what it is to be human and mortal, understand suffering, have emotive value, etc?

Because you have to be human and mortal to understand it to credibly contribute and share the story of what that means to be. You can't superficially understand someone's situation and then take ownership of it. You can get a glimpse and really try and empathize, but you can't become the bearer of that experience, just a consumer.

Yeah but the AI could pretend it knows.

Re: Go master Lee Se-dol says he quits, unable to win over AI Go players

#86
post #68

Full disclosure, I've never played go in real life. In fact only a handful of times on the family computer back in the early 90's (i486). Back then I had 0 understanding about the complexity of the game but now I can appreciate it. Now, going away from this and into the following statement: > said his retirement was primarily motivated by the invincibility of AI Go programs I have a slight problem with that line of t…

I saw this coming even before Alpha Go won 4/5 games vs Lee Sedol. Imagine if you worked all your life to be the best software developer in the world and won all official competitive tournaments with spectators in the field. Then along comes some newfangled ML that not only writes programs faster than you, but the programs are qualitatively orders of magnitude better organized and using algorithms you could only begin to imagine. If your interest is in what's the best, you may as well stop and switch to ML research.

The comparison to sports isn't 1:1 as sports is about physical biological limits vs games which are more about the thought processes. Also human+AlphaZero Much later when it's commonplace for machines to be better than people at many things, things will change back, like we're amazed to watch people recite digits or make numerical computations.

Re: Go master Lee Se-dol says he quits, unable to win over AI Go players

#87
post #6

> Even if I become the number one, there is an entity that cannot be defeated Hard for me to empathize with this argument for his retirement. If we can't outrun a car, does that make running competitions pointless? The existence of AlphaGo doesn't diminish the triumph of being a number one human player in any way.

I would counter with the fact that in physical endeavors it's apparent to us that we are not #1 - our household cats are more agile than us. It's in matters of intellect that humans still believe they are #1. AlphaGO's achievement in another field would have similar effects, e.g.: - An AI that diagnoses sickness better than any doctor - An AI that generates text which humans believe more beautiful than any other poet…

I think in all these cases, reasonable practitioners would be pleased. If an AI could generate good diagnoses, a doctor would be happy, because they would know that many lives would be saved.

Neither art nor music are competitive activities. Good poetry is a wonderful thing, no matter the source.

Re: Go master Lee Se-dol says he quits, unable to win over AI Go players

#88
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before cars, there were horses. We humans are well aware of the fact that our physical ability is not our competitive edge. What about Go? No animal or machine could play it as well as humans do.. until AlphaGo came along. I think that is where the sense of loss comes from.

Not actually true. In a sprint race, yes, but in a 24 hr race the human will outdistance the horse.

Literally speaking, I don't know what is not true about my statement above.

But your point is well taken; it is also applicable to this article as well: maybe Go is not the game people can beat machines, but StarCraft 6 could be. Or maybe I can fold my laundry more efficiently than any machine available.

Re: Go master Lee Se-dol says he quits, unable to win over AI Go players

#89
post #6

> Even if I become the number one, there is an entity that cannot be defeated Hard for me to empathize with this argument for his retirement. If we can't outrun a car, does that make running competitions pointless? The existence of AlphaGo doesn't diminish the triumph of being a number one human player in any way.

I would counter with the fact that in physical endeavors it's apparent to us that we are not #1 - our household cats are more agile than us. It's in matters of intellect that humans still believe they are #1. AlphaGO's achievement in another field would have similar effects, e.g.: - An AI that diagnoses sickness better than any doctor - An AI that generates text which humans believe more beautiful than any other poet…

Counter-example: Machines can make perfect music, play an entire orchestra, and know every song I've ever heard of and millions I don't.

But that doesn't detract from people playing Ukelele.

Re: Go master Lee Se-dol says he quits, unable to win over AI Go players

#90
post #78

Maybe we will see the rise of new games that are "anti-AI" and that would necessarily require AGI for a machine to beat a human. Kinda like "anti-quantum" cryptography algorithms.

Go was considered anti-machine for a very long time due to its extremely high branching making the search approaches which are successful at many other games (such as chess) ineffective.

One might imagine a sociopolitical task as sort of the ultimate machine incompatible goal. A look at how well spambots do at getting dating matches, or at how often clowns get elected to be leaders of nations makes me doubt even those sorts of tasks can't be won out by a well constructed domain specific optimizer.

Post reply on HN