Google enters China - and Wins!

[Randy W]

. . . at "Go", anyway. In the WSJ -

 

Humans Mourn Loss After Google Is Unmasked as China’s Go Master

 

Character revealed itself as an updated version of AlphaGo

 

Master puzzled its human rivals by placing pieces in unconventional positions early in the game and changing tactics from game to game. Sometimes Master skirmished with its opponent across the whole board, while other times it relinquished territory with hardly a fight.

Master’s record—60 wins, 0 losses over seven days ending Wednesday—led virtuoso Go player Gu Li to wonder what other conventional beliefs might be smashed by computers in the future.

 

. . .

 

“Over the past few days we’ve played some unofficial online games at fast time controls with our new prototype version, to check that it’s working as well as we hoped,” Mr. Hassabis tweeted. “We’re excited by the results.”

 

[Randy W]

in the SCMP

 

I'm not sure we can call it Artificial "Intelligence" when it's simply building up a VERY large database - they've even programmed the computer to build it's own database of game situations - while VERY rapidly exploring as many random moves as possible to see which has the best possible outcome, but an interesting article nonetheless. TRUE intelligence comes with decisions made on the basis of learned reactions to external stimuli - NOT by making random simulations based on scanned data from an accumulated database

 

 

ALPHAGO’S CHINA SHOWDOWN: WHY IT’S TIME TO EMBRACE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

As Google DeepMind’s programme prepares for its match with Chinese Go grandmaster Ke Jie, is it time to sit back and let the computers take over?

 

China’s Ke Jie is the world’s top Go player. Photo: SIPA Asia via Zuma Wire

 

Yet that has not stopped AlphaGo, developed by Alphabet Inc’s Google DeepMind, from conquering all before it. AlphaGo’s deep neural networks enable it to teach itself how to play the game. Its programmers set up the basic heuristics of the game, giving AlphaGo a database of 30 million board positions drawn from 160,000 real-life games to analyse, then split its mind so that it could play itself millions of times, learning as it went. That strategy has paid off. In October 2015, AlphaGo beat three-time European champion Fan Hui by 5 games to 0, marking the first time in history a computer had beaten a professional human on a full-sized 19x19 board without handicap. In March 2016, it beat South Korea’s 18-time world champion Lee Sedol 4 to 1. And from late 2016 to early 2017, AlphaGo (disguised as “Magister” and “Master”) secretly played 51 online matches against some of the world’s best players, winning every one.

 

The final showdown is approaching: on May 23, when AlphaGo and the world’s top-ranked Go player Ke Jie will face off in a three-game match under tournament conditions in China.

 

[Randy W]

What did you expect? Blocked in China! First round covered in the NY Times

 

Google’s AlphaGo Defeats Chinese Go Master in Win for A.I.

 

 

The human contender, a 19-year-old Chinese national named Ke Jie, and the computer are only a third of the way through their three-game match this week.

 

. . .

 

“Last year, it was still quite humanlike when it played,” Mr. Ke said after the game. “But this year, it became like a god of Go.”

. . .

AlphaGo — which was developed by DeepMind, the artificial intelligence arm of Google’s parent, Alphabet Incorporated — has already pushed assumptions about just how creative a computer program can be. Since last year, when it defeated a highly ranked South Korean player at Go, it changed the way the top masters played the game. Players have praised the technology’s ability to make unorthodox moves and challenge assumptions core to a game that draws on thousands of years of tradition.

. . .

AlphaGo instead relies on new techniques that help it learn from experience playing a large number of games. This time, Mr. Hassabis said, a new approach allowed AlphaGo to learn more by playing games against itself. In the future, computer scientists hope to use similar techniques to do many things, including improving fundamental scientific research and diagnosing illnesses.

AlphaGo’s victory represents a marketing success for Google and Alphabet. The Mountain View, Calif., software company pulled out of mainland China seven years ago rather than submit to the country’s censorship requirements. But it has continued to express interest in the vast market, which has the world’s largest population of internet users.

. . .

Mr. Ke will have two more chances to get the better of AlphaGo with games on Thursday and Saturday. Most experts do not give him much of a chance. But last year, his rival Mr. Lee surprised, winning one game against AlphaGo out of five after a brilliant and unconventional move stumped the software.

 

[Greg.D.]

I believe I read that it only trained using the 30,000,000 scenarios database, playing against itself and "learning". Later, it plays the matches .... well, maybe just playing from memory, I guess ... but they imply that it creatively responded to each of the opponents' moves. But, now, I'm skeptical about that.

 

Anyway, the human opponent had a great attitude about it (too bad it <wasn't> covered in China, because he sets a good example). He thoughtfully analyzed the play of the program, comparing it to last year's model - he's really the best person in the universe to offer an opinion. Says that he'll stick to playing humans after this, which is a nice dig at google.

[Randy W]

on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PeoplesDaily/posts/1549171085134703

 

People's Daily, China added 3 new photos.

6 hrs ·

 

The world’s top weiqi (Go) player Ke Jie from #China lost the contest against his artificial intelligence (AI) rival, #AlphaGo, in the third and also final match of the summit on Saturday.

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/PeoplesDaily/posts/1549171085134703

Edited October 12, 2018 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

I believe I read that it only trained using the 30,000,000 scenarios database, playing against itself and "learning". Later, it plays the matches .... well, maybe just playing from memory, I guess ... but they imply that it creatively responded to each of the opponents' moves. But, now, I'm skeptical about that.

 

Anyway, the human opponent had a great attitude about it (too bad it <wasn't> covered in China, because he sets a good example). He thoughtfully analyzed the play of the program, comparing it to last year's model - he's really the best person in the universe to offer an opinion. Says that he'll stick to playing humans after this, which is a nice dig at google.

 

 

The "creativity" seems to come from scanning its database, and then systematically trying ALL possible combinations of moves - which is apparently beyond the capability of the human Go masters. That says to me that they typically fall into patterns, which the Go-bot is breaking out of simply by virtue of its VERY large capacity for (internal) trial and error before making EVERY move.

 

 

in 'Wired'

 

GOOGLE’S ALPHAGO TROUNCES HUMANS—BUT IT ALSO GIVES THEM A BOOST

Ke Jie went on to lose that game and then the next. And some observers continued to lament that machines were eclipsing humans. But that’s not the story of AlphaGo’s trip to China. What’s most striking is how closely the players have studied the games played by AlphaGo—and how hungry they are for more. Many have repeatedly called on DeepMind to release the many games that AlphaGo has played in private. They know they can’t beat the machine. But like Thore Graepel, they believe it can make them better.

 

[Randy W]

. . . and in the NY Times

 

Is China Outsmarting America in A.I.?

 

Baidu’s speech-recognition software — which can accomplish the difficult task of hearing tonal differences in Chinese dialects — is considered top of the class. When Microsoft announced last October that its speech recognition software had surpassed human-level language recognition, Baidu’s head of research at the time playfully reminded the American company that his team had accomplished a similar feat a year earlier.

 

. . .

 

“After AlphaGo came out and had such a big impact on the industry,” said Zha Hongbin, a professor of machine learning at Peking University, “the content of government discussions got much wider and more concrete.” Shortly afterward, the government created a new project on brain-inspired computing, he added.

For all the government support, advances in the field could ultimately backfire, Mr. Shirky said. Artificial intelligence may help China better censor the internet, a task that often blocks Chinese researchers from finding vital information. At the same time, better A.I. could make it easier for Chinese readers to translate articles and other information.

“The fact is,” Mr. Shirky said, “unlike automobile engineering, artificial intelligence will lead to surprises. That will make the world considerably less predictable, and that’s never been Beijing’s favorite characteristic.”

 

[Randy W]

. . . and the Shanghaiist

 

AlphaGo retires after demolishing the best Go players that mankind had to offer

 

Following its win, London-based DeepMind has decided that mankind no longer offers any sort of challenge to AlphaGo, retiring the AI from competition and saying that it will move on to future projects like “finding new cures for diseases, dramatically reducing energy consumption, or inventing revolutionary new materials" -- all of which do sound somewhat more important than continuing to kick humanity's ass at a board game.

 

[MikeandRong]

Sounds all noble like until somebody gets sidetracked into gambleing or war games for the other side. Could go South in a hurry if used the wrong way.

[Randy W]

Another directive from above , , , in the NY Times

 

Beijing Wants A.I. to Be Made in China by 2030

 

The plan comes with China preparing a multibillion-dollar national investment initiative to support “moonshot” projects, start-ups and academic research in A.I., according to two professors who consulted with the government about the effort.

 

. . .

 

The two professors who consulted with the government on A.I. both said that the 2016 defeat of Lee Se-dol, a South Korean master of the board game Go, by Google’s AlphaGo had a profound impact on politicians in China. Then in May, Google brought AlphaGo to China, where it defeated the world’s top-ranked player, Ke Jie of China. Live video coverage of the event was blocked at the last minute in China.

As a sort of Sputnik moment for China, the professors said, the event paved the way for a new flow of funds into the discipline.

 

 

In the meantime, watch for lots of dancing robots . . .

 

https://youtu.be/3otrUaWcLYU