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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?

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Kind of cool to know (if you're Lee) that your thinking ability is on par with 1920 CPUs and 280 GPUs!

Well, the whole point of this match has been to demonstrate that it is not...

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

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

#53
post #6

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, e…

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...

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

#54

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…

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.

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

#55
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?

I think there's some mention at one point of humans who've augmented themselves to the point of being Mind-like, but by that stage they aren't really human any more.

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

#56
post #34
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

>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.

In that regard, Lee Sedol has done the game of Go a great service by being so gracious in defeat (and for once, the media headlines actually mirror his humility and maturity). That has actually been my lasting impression from the match.

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

#57
post #44
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.

Read the first paragraph. Sounds like the students in the story are forgoing most other learning to be great Go players. There's a big difference in their level of dedication. Does Go still remain as exciting of a sport?

If Chess is any indicator, the ebb and flow of popularity of such games are more dependent on the persona and narratives of their champions and championship matches rather than any existence of a machine superior in skill to its human counterparts.s

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

#58
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.

That's a better statement of my own version, which has been: Now that we have bulldozers and cranes, is there any point to getting physically stronger?

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

#59
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?

There are certainly mathematics competitions, where humans (usually high-school or college-age students) participate and cheer on other humans who are artificially restricted from the use of a calculator. And these competitions are considered useful because the skills required to do well on them are very valuable in certain industries, even if the artificial restriction on calculators is removed. In fact, some of the companies that most aggressively hire people who perform well at these competitions are also well-known for automating accounting tasks that were done by humans until recently, such as determining the expected price of a stock.

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

#60
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.
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