“How Go Players Disempower Themselves to AI” by Ashe Vazquez Nuñez

About this episode

The episode discusses the cultural impact of AI on Go players and the dynamics of human engagement in the game.

Written as part of the MATS 9.1 extension program, mentored by Richard Ngo. From March 9th to 15th 2016, Go players around the world stayed up to watch their game fall to AI. Google DeepMind's AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol, commonly understood to be the world's strongest player at the time, with a convincing 4-1 score. This event “rocked” the Go world, but its impact on the culture was initially unclear. In Chess, for instance, computers have not meaningfully automated away human jobs. Human Chess flourished as a pseudo-Esport in the internet era whereas the yearly Computer Chess Championship is followed concurrently by no more than a few hundred nerds online. It turns out that the game's cultural and economic value comes not from the abstract beauty of top-end performance, but instead from human drama and engagement. Indeed, Go has appeared to replicate this. A commentary stream might feature a complementary AI evaluation bar to give the viewers context. A Go teacher might include some new intriguing AI variations in their lesson materials. But the cultural practice of Go seemed to remain largely unaffected. Nascent signs of disharmony in Europe became nevertheless visible in early…

People in this episode

Guest: Ashe Vazquez Nuñez

Topics covered

• AI
• Go
• human engagement
• cultural impact
• technology

Keywords

• Go
• AI
• AlphaGo
• Lee Sedol
• cultural impact
• human drama
• technology

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Google DeepMind

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