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In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future?

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Re: In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future?

#31

Post by threatofrain »

chenglou wrote: post #5

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.

Does that mean that marathon runners will no longer be in regular use in industry, and be relegated to special events justified in part by aesthetics, and also by audience spectacle?

Likewise, if machines can do quality accounting, does that mean that accounts will be relegated to special accounting events, just like there are marathon events, where people come for aesthetic enjoyment or audience spectacle?

Re: In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future?

#32

Post by Animats »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #25
Animats wrote: post #13

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…

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

It wouldn't be expensive to rent that much "cloud" hardware for a few hours.

Re: In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future?

#33

Post by thetruthseeker1 »

chenglou wrote: post #5

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.

Or in the 1990s in the age of DeepBlue (IBM super computer), do young chess prodigies of countries that formed the former USSR have a future?

Re: In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future?

#34

Post by nothis »

ng12 wrote: post #22
nothis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that analogy a lot! It's not like "playing Go really well" ever solved any real-world problem, it has always been a competition among humans. What should change, there?

I feel like the author completely misunderstood why AlphaGo is exciting. It's about advancements in technology and soft AI, Go has almost nothing to do with it.

Well, we're on hackernews, we like the tech stuff. For most of the world, this news is where people learn about Go and the human player's "humiliation" (whether or not the Go community sees it that way) is the story.

I'd argue, though, that this is merely a proof of deep learning being able to solve "hard" problems. There's headlines everywhere about deep learning solving previously "impossible" image recognition problems, for example. Fields that are much more interesting and relevant in their real-world impact. AlphaGo, in comparison, seems like a PR/pet project. It mostly exists to play Go really well. It's a sub-branch of uses of the technology, not a start.

Re: In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future?

#35

Post by 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?

Re: In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future?

#36

Post by 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.

Re: In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future?

#37

Post by nothis »

threatofrain wrote: post #31
chenglou wrote: post #5

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.

Does that mean that marathon runners will no longer be in regular use in industry, and be relegated to special events justified in part by aesthetics, and also by audience spectacle? Likewise, if machines can do quality accounting, does that mean that accounts will be relegated to special accounting events, just like there are marathon events, where people come for aesthetic enjoyment or audience spectacle?

IMO the analogy is correct for Go players as that's mostly a "sport".

There's real cases of similar technology putting people out of jobs, for example I recently read that more and more finance firms more or less completely automate a lot of processes, even those where you'd traditionally would have counted on people's "gut feelings". Deep learning is eerily good at simulating "gut feelings".

Re: In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future?

#38

Post by eru »

burritofanatic wrote: post #16

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.

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

Re: In the Age of Google DeepMind, Do the Young Go Prodigies of Asia Have a Future?

#40

Post by saalweachter »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #19
Pamar wrote: post #9

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.

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?

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.
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