IN PAIRS AND TEAMS, CHINA’S TOP PROS PARTNER WITH ALPHAGO TO BROADEN THE GAME’S HORIZONS

Wuzhen, China (May 26, 2017) — Winning or losing took the backseat on day four of the Future of Go Summit, as DeepMind’s Go-playing artificial intelligence (A.I.), AlphaGo, collaborated with China’s top players for two different games of Go. The game formats of “Pair Go” and “Team Go” were chosen specifically for the challenges they present to AlphaGo, its teammates, and its opponents. As a result, viewers saw a series of inventive and intriguing moves from the Go professionals and AlphaGo alike.

Dave Silver, lead researcher for AlphaGo at DeepMind, captured the theme of the day when he said, “Today wasn’t really about winning or losing. It was about exploring the different formats and different possibilities in the game of Go and seeing what we could learn. Pair Go was a beautiful game. All four players made some brilliant and creative moves. It felt like four painters working together on a shared canvas, all with different styles, all combining together to make something truly beautiful.” He concluded by saying, “This was a glimpse into the future, when humans could work with A.I. tools to create something more than was ever possible before.”

Pair Go

In the first of the day’s matches, top Chinese professionals Gu Li and Lian Xiao each had their own AlphaGo teammate in Pair Go. They alternated moves in a tag-team style. After working with AlphaGo to win the Pair Go game, 8 dan player Lian Xiao said, “We really admire AlphaGo’s team for building such a cool system, one that could actually broaden the horizons of the game. It could bring more imagination and creativity into the game. Now we can really feel the robustness of AlphaGo, but I don’t think it’s invincible. There is still room for improvement. It plays like a human player, maybe just a human being from several hundred years in the future.”

After he and his AlphaGo teammate resigned, Gu Li was still upbeat, saying, “I feel that I will learn a lot from this match and the surprising moves AlphaGo played. Games like this will give us new ideas about how to play.”

Korean language commentator and 9 dan player, Kim Sung Yong, further elaborated on this theme. “This match is especially important in that it shows how humans and A.I. can coexist. It seemed as if the Go board was a human body, and AlphaGo identified areas that requires treatment but were not foreseen by human doctors. The players, or human doctors, accepted these ‘prescriptions’ from AlphaGo to achieve better results together. Not only the Go world, but also healthcare and other industries — where A.I. can be applied — should pay attention to this match.”

Observing the Pair Go match, Wang Lei, an 8 dan player and Chinese language commentator, compared AlphaGo’s performance to FC Barcelona forward Lionel Messi’s skill on the field. “Both of the human players must be suprised, because every move is so innovative. We are excited as well to watch such a unique game. It is joyful to watch AlphaGo’s fights, like watching Messi play.”

Team Go

In the day’s second game, Team Go, five of China’s top professional players faced the challenge of working together to take on AlphaGo’s distinctive style. Yue Shi, a member of the Team Go game said, “We have learned a lot from playing with AlphaGo today. I think that A.I. will improve people’s lives in many different applications.”

Chinese language commentator Liu Jing, himself an 8 dan player, said “The game of Go has thousands of years of history, and our skills have been making progress all this time. But we still have very limited knowledge about the mysteries of this game. Modern Go is totally different from the past, and the differences have become even bigger since the birth of AlphaGo.”

Between players and commentators, many talked about new insights they discovered through the games. “I’m learning from every AlphaGo game I look at, especially since the Master series of the games, there’s almost always something new,“ Michael Redmond, a 9 dan Go player and an official English language commentator said during the Team Go game.

Best of all, the Team Go game seemed to be a lot of fun (see photo here). Yaoye Chen, 9 dan, said “It is very interesting to have a team format as Go is usually an individual game. It is a novel experience to play [this way] and I think it requires a lot of coordination and collaboration. I’ve had a lot of fun playing in a team format with AlphaGo!”