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

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

#51

Post by eyegor »

Am I the only one reading this article with the take away that the ai is not his primary reason for retirement? I understand that the title has its own conclusion but it seems overly sensational to me.

> He actually quit the KBA in May 2016 and is now suing the association for the return of his membership fee.

> "... [I] have something else to do," he said, asserting his only dream for now is to rest and spend time with his family.

Edit: Meant to include the part where he's planning a high profile set of games against another ai.

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

#52

Post by C14L »

yters wrote: post #36

I guess the players don't realize how mismatched they are with the AI. AI spends many, many factors of magnitude more compute to achieve the same goal as a human. There is no comparison between man and machine at this point. From a pure efficiency standpoint, humans are vastly superior.

Maybe in chess, instead of measuring time, they should measure kJ spent.

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

#53

Post by fma »

lordnacho wrote: post #3

It would be a bit sad if the fact that there's good AI players discourages future generations from Go, Chess and other games. Weirdly the AI will have destroyed the basis for its own existence, at least in this niche.

I think most people will still play Go for fun or some competitive level...

But if you're being measured against AI, I don't think you'd find it much fun anymore.

As someone else commented, we're not faster than cars. But if you were at one point the fastest entity, and then people keep saying "well, a car is faster than you"...I can understand that he'd feel it diminishes his value and that'd be pretty discouraging.

He will play another AI program soon and isn't quitting Go all together, but will find other things to do.

'Lee didn't deny that his retirement decision was also influenced by a conflict with the KBA over the use of membership fees. He actually quit the KBA in May 2016 and is now suing the association for the return of his membership fee.'

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

#54

Post by halflings »

rosybox wrote: post #30
SchoolboyBlue wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> An AI that generates text which humans believe more beautiful than any other poetry created - An AI which creates classical arrangements the likes of which we compare to Mozart Hrm, I do think that AI would be able to create narratives that humans find more enjoyable than the work of other humans, and I agree that AI would be able to create pictures and sound that humans find to be more enjoyable to look at or hear…

> But what I doubt AI will ever be able to do is create art that speaks to us.

This is your opinion, but you then go to mention things that are not necessary to create "art that speaks to us" (look within itself and find what mortality means etc.).

What if we advance AI reasoning skills to a point that it can find high-level patterns in how artists go from different human feelings (as described in litterature and other mediums), takes in a lot of the entities we can relate to (animals, what humans look like, etc.) and some aesthetic ones (shapes, colorometry, textures, ...) to create a new piece of art that optimizes for: "Likelihood of speaking to us"?

What then? It seems like an AI doesn't need to be mortal and self aware to do something like that.

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

#55

Post by smattiso »

Are we losing something as humans by automating so much? I mean I'm all for technical progress but at some point our computers will have killed so much of what makes us humans.

Chess, go, driving, flying, math, written language, music... when does it stop?

The standard answer is that we will automate all the dull parts of living and allow everybody to work in some sort of higher order capacity. That sounds great and all, but what happens when our systems learn how to make music as well as we can ourselves?

At some point we will simply become consumers of our machines and while that's a comfortable existence, certainly we are losing something as a species with all of this automation.

Maybe I'm old.

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

#56

Post by chowells »

rosybox wrote: post #30
SchoolboyBlue wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> An AI that generates text which humans believe more beautiful than any other poetry created - An AI which creates classical arrangements the likes of which we compare to Mozart Hrm, I do think that AI would be able to create narratives that humans find more enjoyable than the work of other humans, and I agree that AI would be able to create pictures and sound that humans find to be more enjoyable to look at or hear…

And top-level Go players believed their best tournament matches to be works of art, unmatchable by computation.

That belief grew into a sort of shared perception that they were artists in pursuit of a perfect expression of their art. For many top players that belief was ingrained from an early age. They believed themselves to be doing a service to the world, making it a better place by creating new art that was a unique expression of themselves.

And then AlphaGo (and successors) shattered that worldview. This is part of the natural sequence of the collapse of a suddenly, surprisingly invalidated worldview. Part of me feels sorry that he has lost his place in the world. Another part of me firmly believes in the mediocrity principle, and that the worldview he represents was obviously far too human-chauvenistic to be correct, and it's a good thing it's dying.

And part of me hopes you can give up your human-chauvenism before the same thing happens to you.

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

#57

Post by ckosidows »

grenoire wrote: post #16
TylerE wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What assumptions are you basing this on, curious to know if horses have a disadvantage over longer durations.

I would recommend reading _Born to Run_ by Christopher McDougall. Later in the book he addresses this very topic and expands much more upon the topic of humans and long-distance running.

Humans sweat, which most (all?) other animals don't. In that way we can dissipate heat through our breath, like other animals, _and_ via perspiration, meaning it takes us much longer to overheat.

Additionally, humans stand upright, allowing us to disconnect our stride from our oxygen intake. Other animals' strides correlate (mostly?) 1:1 with the breaths they take. So when a cheetah outstretches in its stride it breathes in and when its legs come together it exhales. Humans stand upright, meaning we can breathe however we want regardless of our stride and speed. We can take deeper breaths because we don't have to exhale every time we stretch our legs.

Humans are the ultimate marathon runners, even more so than horses, evinced by the fact that there are some people throughout history who have run hundreds of miles in the course of days or weeks. There's a theory touched upon in the book about how this allowed us to dominate the animal kingdom before we even had tools. Humans could relentlessly hunt and exhaust animals as long as they could keep them in sight or otherwise keep up with their tracks.

I'm not doing the book or the topic justice, surely, but if you're interested I highly recommend the book.

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

#58

Post by asfarley »

rosybox wrote: post #30
SchoolboyBlue wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> An AI that generates text which humans believe more beautiful than any other poetry created - An AI which creates classical arrangements the likes of which we compare to Mozart Hrm, I do think that AI would be able to create narratives that humans find more enjoyable than the work of other humans, and I agree that AI would be able to create pictures and sound that humans find to be more enjoyable to look at or hear…

This is degrading and short-sighted. Why wouldn't an AI fear death?

What is your fundamental reason for thinking that silicon-based computation is better than neurotransmitter-based computation? How can you believe that any two forms of computation are fundamentally different, despite countless examples of different systems all being equivalent in the Turing-completeness sense?

I believe that arguments like yours, in the relatively near future, will be looked upon the same as arguments that black people aren't real people.

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

#59

Post by mindgam3 »

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.

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

#60

Post by Barrin92 »

I think this is a strange reason to retire and as the article points out it might also simply be due to the legal conflict he is currently in with the KBA.

Chess engines have been defeating humans for 20+ years (and are overwhelmingly stronger for a long time), but that hasn't diminished the interest in competitive chess, because the human element of competition and struggle and deep fundamental appreciation for the game is what makes it worthwhile pursuing.

AlphaGo can play go but it cannot appreciate the beauty of the game (at least as of yet, and I don't think it would make the game worse if it could), and so I don't think there's a meaningful conflict between humans and machines.

If someone invented some sort of superhuman math proving engine tomorrow it would not diminish the beauty of maths and I don't think anyone would quit the field. Just like in chess it ought to motivate people to understand their field better.

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