From March 9 to March 15 of the year 2016, Lee Sedol, a professional Go player who has a 9-dan rank, faced off against a program called AlphaGo which was developed by Google DeepMind in London to simply play the game Go. The series of games ended 4 to 1, with AlphaGo having the advantage. Afterwards, Lee Sedol even admitted to saying that he never wanted to play against the sort of program AlphaGo ever again. Artificial intelligence has always been the topic for many discussions, but this fairly recent event is extremely intriguing with AlphaGo’s victories. Programs before AlphaGo were only able to beat professional players with handicaps and only amateur Go players without handicaps. But is this really an accomplishment though?
March 15 of 2016 was a historic day with the final match of Lee Sedol’s game against AlphaGo ending with a loss from the human side. Lee Sedol only won one of those games with a brilliant move which itself was a feat to behold. But the fact remains, Lee Sedol, a human 9-dan Go player, lost to a machine that did a human’s work. An honestly humiliating defeat for one of the greatest Go players alive, especially since AlphaGo was awarded an honorary 9-dan rank from the Korean Baduk Association for its extraordinary achievement when the matches were very clearly in favor of AlphaGo due to its lack of actual skill and dependence on computing power that an ordinary human would not even dream of contesting.
Was this victory fair? In my opinion, absolutely not. AlphaGo used advanced computing to predetermine the outcome of the match before Lee Sedol was even able to think of the first move for each of the five games. His fourth match, his only victory, is the proof because of an unexpected move that turned the tables. Does a game really count when the odds are stacked against one side? Does a game really count when one side knows what will happen 100 moves ahead of you no matter what you do? Is AlphaGo even special? Many computer programs are known to have beaten professional players in other games like chess, though chess can be considered much less taxing for computers than Go. These programs were all based on winning against people in games that require a lot of thinking power for a human, but not much for a machine that can compute several hundred combinations of moves in a few seconds and very important moves in a few minutes.
Critics believe the games were historic purely based on how intense the two played, and the games were indeed fierce, but this is historic for an entirely different reason. Those games were matches where machines could finally surpass the threshold that only humans could reach with the gift of life. Does this prove that machines are better than humans? This question only leads to more questions. Humans have and always will be able to do whatever they can because they are living organisms and can feel emotions or pull through in a tough situation, but for a computer, emotions are just a jumble of numbers that can be recreated with a specific algorithm.
Go is actually a highly complex game that involves excellent strategy, fast tactics and most of the time, human intuition. Yet somehow, AlphaGo program was able to beat one of best players with just pure number crunching when Go, like any other game, involves using your gut feelings with raw intelligence complimenting that rather than controlling your play style completely. People have been pessimistic about the day when computers would be able to perform actions that excellent humans should not even be able to pull off, but AlphaGo became a prime counter example. But this advancement is not necessarily bad as this could provide the framework for working artificial intelligence that could later benefit humanity. However, this would only lead to the dehumanization of society and in turn decrease the amount of overall human interaction or place more importance on the machines than humans when we, as a society, should be cultivating stronger and better individuals instead of relying on faster computing programs.
Alas, it all comes down to personal preference and everyone’s opinion. But ask yourself this, reader. Is AlphaGo’s victory over Lee Sedol, and the humiliation that followed any different from other similar programs that came before it? Is AlphaGo really special only because it can play a game that would normally require intense focus and faith by using specific search patterns to find the best outcome?
Jake Lee (9)
March 15 of 2016 was a historic day with the final match of Lee Sedol’s game against AlphaGo ending with a loss from the human side. Lee Sedol only won one of those games with a brilliant move which itself was a feat to behold. But the fact remains, Lee Sedol, a human 9-dan Go player, lost to a machine that did a human’s work. An honestly humiliating defeat for one of the greatest Go players alive, especially since AlphaGo was awarded an honorary 9-dan rank from the Korean Baduk Association for its extraordinary achievement when the matches were very clearly in favor of AlphaGo due to its lack of actual skill and dependence on computing power that an ordinary human would not even dream of contesting.
Was this victory fair? In my opinion, absolutely not. AlphaGo used advanced computing to predetermine the outcome of the match before Lee Sedol was even able to think of the first move for each of the five games. His fourth match, his only victory, is the proof because of an unexpected move that turned the tables. Does a game really count when the odds are stacked against one side? Does a game really count when one side knows what will happen 100 moves ahead of you no matter what you do? Is AlphaGo even special? Many computer programs are known to have beaten professional players in other games like chess, though chess can be considered much less taxing for computers than Go. These programs were all based on winning against people in games that require a lot of thinking power for a human, but not much for a machine that can compute several hundred combinations of moves in a few seconds and very important moves in a few minutes.
Critics believe the games were historic purely based on how intense the two played, and the games were indeed fierce, but this is historic for an entirely different reason. Those games were matches where machines could finally surpass the threshold that only humans could reach with the gift of life. Does this prove that machines are better than humans? This question only leads to more questions. Humans have and always will be able to do whatever they can because they are living organisms and can feel emotions or pull through in a tough situation, but for a computer, emotions are just a jumble of numbers that can be recreated with a specific algorithm.
Go is actually a highly complex game that involves excellent strategy, fast tactics and most of the time, human intuition. Yet somehow, AlphaGo program was able to beat one of best players with just pure number crunching when Go, like any other game, involves using your gut feelings with raw intelligence complimenting that rather than controlling your play style completely. People have been pessimistic about the day when computers would be able to perform actions that excellent humans should not even be able to pull off, but AlphaGo became a prime counter example. But this advancement is not necessarily bad as this could provide the framework for working artificial intelligence that could later benefit humanity. However, this would only lead to the dehumanization of society and in turn decrease the amount of overall human interaction or place more importance on the machines than humans when we, as a society, should be cultivating stronger and better individuals instead of relying on faster computing programs.
Alas, it all comes down to personal preference and everyone’s opinion. But ask yourself this, reader. Is AlphaGo’s victory over Lee Sedol, and the humiliation that followed any different from other similar programs that came before it? Is AlphaGo really special only because it can play a game that would normally require intense focus and faith by using specific search patterns to find the best outcome?
Jake Lee (9)