DailyDirt: AlphaGo Plays Better Go Than Puny Humans...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

In case you missed it, humanity has been dealt a decisive intellectual blow by a go-playing computer program called AlphaGo. We mentioned AlphaGo back in January when Google announced that it had defeated European Go champion Fan Hui and was challenging Lee Sedol next. So now that the results are in, AlphaGo has shown the world that artificial intelligence can best the best of humanity at our most difficult games. We've seen this already with chess, and if you don't remember, people tried to make a variant of chess called Arimaa that humans could hold up as a game people could win over computers (ahem, that didn't work). We still have Calvinball, Diplomacy and certain forms of poker.... After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.
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Filed Under: ai, algorithms, alphago, arimaa, artificial intelligence, chess, fan hui, feng-hsiung hsu, game algorithms, games, go, lee sedol
Companies: deepmind, google


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Mar 2016 @ 11:16pm

    AlphaGo for president!

    I'd trust a computer program over some of the candidates.....

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      David, 17 Mar 2016 @ 1:19am

      Re: AlphaGo for president!

      You mean, you'd trust a computer programmer or team thereof.

      However, the computer/program would be vulnerable to malware: you'd need constant monitoring and maintenance. And with maintenance, it (or rather its programmers) would become vulnerable to power poisoning like human presidents.

      Of course, these days the race is long over by the time someone is candidate. If you're born with a wooden spoon in your mouth like Eisenhower was, you don't stand much of a chance.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Uriel-238 (profile), 17 Mar 2016 @ 12:41am

    For those who can't read Wired on account of adblockers...

    Rocketnews is willing to release the article without making demands regarding your adblocker.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Ninja (profile), 17 Mar 2016 @ 5:52am

    So what did AlphaGo do with its money? Is he hitting on some hot Alphaettes?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Uriel-238 (profile), 17 Mar 2016 @ 11:42am

      Prize Money.

      It's traditional when we build computers that enter into typically human-contestant contests and then win prize money that the money goes to charities. Some news sources mention UNICEF and Go-related non-profits.

      Personally, after the recent announcement that Cortana won't take sass from human macho pigs, I'd like to see some development of alphaettes, i.e. voice-commanded electronic personal assistant clients with learning systems that can actually respond to relationship cues like a human being.

      Like Her but without the guilt and the transcendence at the end because she's too good for this sinful earth and humans should not date robots (according to the Space Pope).

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    JoeCool (profile), 17 Mar 2016 @ 1:39pm

    Doesn't actually play better

    Seriously, comparing a machine that cost billions of dollars, takes a team of hundreds (if not thousands) of engineers to construct and program, and took decades as well as HUNDREDS of billions to develop to a single human in their 30s to 50s who has in all probability made less than one million in their life is intellectually dishonest at best. So it's not surprising that media hypes this.

    Next competition, how about comparing that billion dollar machine against a team of experts, the size of which would depend on how many you can entice with a billion dollars up front regardless of how they perform. Oh, and give them a hundred billion dollars to buy expert advice and training materials.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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