Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How much did AlphaGo Zero cost? (2018)

yuzeh.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 179 posts

Re: How much did AlphaGo Zero cost? (2018)

#151

Post by tuxiano »

JamesBarney wrote: post #119
air7 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is human&computer better than computer only?

No. Computers are now as much better than Magnus Carlsen as he is better than a moderate amateur. If even the best player overrides a move he's much more likely to be reducing the strength of the move than increasing it.

The rating you are referring to are typically based on tournament or rapid games, where the limited time induces the human players to mistakes that the computer capitalizes on. Given enough time or with a “blunder check” option, the best human players are still strategically stronger. In correspondence chess, where the is much more time at disposal, the human players can still improve the computer suggestions.

Source: I’m a correspondence international chess master

Re: How much did AlphaGo Zero cost? (2018)

#152

Post by vecter »

tuxiano wrote: post #149
Strilanc wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you provide a source for this?

I suppose he can’t because it isn’t true at all. The best correspondence players usually improve significantly over the computer suggestions. Source: I’m a corrspondence chess international master

> The best correspondence players usually improve significantly over the computer suggestions.

I might be misunderstanding your claim, but how can humans playing correspondence chess beat Stockfish or Lc0?

Re: How much did AlphaGo Zero cost? (2018)

#153

Post by bsder »

sharedfrog wrote: post #138
luisvictoria wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, humans barely provide insight (if anything), which chess engines don’t already consider. Deep Blue could evaluate 200 million different moves... per second. And that’s from 1997. The few and rare times an engine gets funky is usually in end-game positions where the engine can’t seem to find a sacrifice to win the game and will output a current position as drawn. These cases are few and I very much doubt t…

> I’d recommend you to look up a few games between AlphaGo and Stockfish Agadmator's youtube channel covers a bunch of those. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yM0D1iZLrg

And some of the most amazing games are when AlphaGo is absolutely breaking chess "wisdom" left and right simply because it can see a forced solution on the horizon.

Pawn structure? BAH! King safety? CHARGE!

And then 75 moves later Stockfish is in zugzwang.

Re: How much did AlphaGo Zero cost? (2018)

#154

Post by roenxi »

scheveningen wrote: post #140
thelean12 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can a human + computer beat just a computer? I can't imagine a human doing anything besides making things worse or even.

It's much more difficult than it used to be, but I think there is still some value to human guidance, more as a "referee" than anything else. Right now we have essentially two top tier engines -- traditional brute force with alpha beta pruning (stockfish), and ML (leela). Both alone are incredibly strong, but they are strongest and weakest in different types of positions. A computer chess expert, who knows what kind…

Computer mastery of Go has reached the point where it is a difficult task for an expert (read: grandmaster level) human to even follow what is happening. It is totally implausible that a human could resolve a conflict between top engines in a meaningful way.

It is unlikely that Chess is any different. Any superficial understanding by a human of which move is 'better' is just ignorance of the issues around evaluating a position. If you have statistical evidence that is something. 'But I think' is not evidence.

It might be entertaining to have a human involved. It isn't going to help with winning games.

Re: How much did AlphaGo Zero cost? (2018)

#155

Post by rurban »

melbourne_mat wrote: post #48
rurban wrote: post #38

Misleading numbers, and wrong calculations. The TPU and CPU cost them almost nothing as they use and build them anyway, and renting them out for this PR stunt just cost them the missed rental time, if customers would really pay that much. Maybe around 20.000. Energy cost? I don't see much additional costs as those machines run all the time, regardless if improving the model or doing something else. I bet the much hig…

"renting them out for this PR stunt just cost them the missed rental time" Because renting them out generates no revenue, right? "Maybe around 20.000" At least the article used a formula for the calculation. You just picked a number at random.

You need actual customers paying that much, not hypothetical ones. That was my educated guess.

And the title was "His much did it cost" not how much it would cost.

Re: How much did AlphaGo Zero cost? (2018)

#156

Post by tuxiano »

vecter wrote: post #152
tuxiano wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose he can’t because it isn’t true at all. The best correspondence players usually improve significantly over the computer suggestions. Source: I’m a corrspondence chess international master

> The best correspondence players usually improve significantly over the computer suggestions. I might be misunderstanding your claim, but how can humans playing correspondence chess beat Stockfish or Lc0?

In official correspondence games the computer assistance is allowed so most (if not all) of the players usually start their analysis with the computer suggestions (Stockfish, Lc0 or others). Some players limit themselves to this and play the engine's move, others try to improve with their own contribution. If no human contribution was possible, correspondence chess would become an hardware fight while results show that the best players can defeat "naive" opponents that rely on computer suggestions. In this sense, every correspondence chess win is a win over the opponent's hardware and engine.

Re: How much did AlphaGo Zero cost? (2018)

#157

Post by tuxiano »

nl wrote: post #107
mikorym wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Garry Kasparov to this day does computer&human vs. computer&human chess research, and it's far from a solved problem.

If by "it's far from a solved problem" you mean that chess isn't a solved game that's true. But Kasparov and others have given up on the idea that a human provides any unique insight into chess anymore. Computers are just better.

You are right if by "better" you mean "competitively stronger at tournament or rapid conditions". Humans are still way stronger strategically and competitively if given enough time and resources to avoid tactical mistakes. So yes, humans still provide unique insight into chess every day in correspondence chess or analytic research.

Re: How much did AlphaGo Zero cost? (2018)

#158

Post by JamesBarney »

tuxiano wrote: post #151
JamesBarney wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Computers are now as much better than Magnus Carlsen as he is better than a moderate amateur. If even the best player overrides a move he's much more likely to be reducing the strength of the move than increasing it.

The rating you are referring to are typically based on tournament or rapid games, where the limited time induces the human players to mistakes that the computer capitalizes on. Given enough time or with a “blunder check” option, the best human players are still strategically stronger. In correspondence chess, where the is much more time at disposal, the human players can still improve the computer suggestions. Source…

Yeah I was thinking about classic or standard time controls. The last big cyborg tournament a few years ago I remember a computer coming in 1st and 2nd.

I wasn't thinking about correspondence but what was the latest large cyborg correspondence tournament?

Re: How much did AlphaGo Zero cost? (2018)

#159

Post by roenxi »

tuxiano wrote: post #149
Strilanc wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you provide a source for this?

I suppose he can’t because it isn’t true at all. The best correspondence players usually improve significantly over the computer suggestions. Source: I’m a corrspondence chess international master

I'm interested because the experience in Go is humans simply can't keep up.

What is the evidence that it isn't a hardware or software differential between the players? I can't think of an easy way to ensure that both players started with computer-suggested moves of the same quality.

Re: How much did AlphaGo Zero cost? (2018)

#160

Post by vecter »

tuxiano wrote: post #156
vecter wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best correspondence players usually improve significantly over the computer suggestions. I might be misunderstanding your claim, but how can humans playing correspondence chess beat Stockfish or Lc0?

In official correspondence games the computer assistance is allowed so most (if not all) of the players usually start their analysis with the computer suggestions (Stockfish, Lc0 or others). Some players limit themselves to this and play the engine's move, others try to improve with their own contribution. If no human contribution was possible, correspondence chess would become an hardware fight while results show th…

Isn't it possible that you're not improving upon the engine's suggestions, but instead, your opponent is choosing suboptimal non-engine lines, and your engine is beating their weakened engine?
Post reply on HN