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AlphaGo has won another 50 games against the world's top Go players, this time with little fanfare:
DeepMind's AlphaGo is back, and it's been secretly crushing the world's best Go players over the past couple of weeks. The new version of the AI has played 51 games online and won 50 of them, including a victory against Ke Jie, currently the world's best human Go player. Amusingly, the 51st game wasn't even a loss; it was drawn after the Internet connection dropped out. [...] Following its single game loss [in a match against Lee Sedol], DeepMind has been hard at work on a new and improved version of AlphaGo—and it appears the AI is back bigger, better, and more undefeated than ever. DeepMind's co-founder Demis Hassabis announced on Twitter yesterday that "the new version of AlphaGo" had been playing "some unofficial online games" on the Tygem and FoxGo servers under the names Magister (P) and Master (P). It played 51 games in total against some of the world's best players, including Ke Jie, Gu Li, and Lee Sedol—and didn't lose a single one.
That isn't to say that AlphaGo's unofficial games went unnoticed, though. Over the last week, a number of forum threads have popped up to discuss this mystery debutante who has been thrashing the world's best players. Given its unbeaten record and some very "non-human" moves, most onlookers were certain that Master and Magister were being played by an AI—they just weren't certain if it was AlphaGo, or perhaps another AI out of China or Japan. It is somewhat unclear, but it seems that DeepMind didn't warn the opponents that they were playing against AlphaGo. Perhaps they were told after their games had concluded, though. Ali Jabarin, a professional Go player, apparently bumped into Ke Jie after he'd been beaten by the AI: "He [was] a bit shocked... just repeating 'it's too strong.'"
Will there still be "Go celebrities" once DeepMind has finished mopping the floor with them and turned their attention elsewhere?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Lester on Friday January 06 2017, @10:35AM
Aren't there chess player stars any more, Fisher, Karpov, Kaspárov etc.?
Well, no. Kaspárov was the last chess champion star. Nevertheless, there are still chess championships with a lot of followers. But it is a fact, great masters and champions aren't general public celebrities any more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @10:41AM
Holy hell, really? What's next?? Classical music goes out of style??? We must do something about this! We need to get the kids drinking milk and listening to classical music and and playing chess again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @10:43AM
Dope the milk with drugs and spent a night doing ultraviolence to old geezers! Let's see how many pawns fit up a pensioner's anus!!!
(Score: 1) by Lester on Friday January 06 2017, @11:46AM
I wasn't complaining, just telling that what happened to chess un going to happen to Go.
But if you change to this topic, I complain. It's sad that new generations are more interested in hype and stuff that requires low attention that in deep matters.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Unixnut on Friday January 06 2017, @10:42AM
But it is a fact, great masters and champions aren't general public celebrities any more.
I feel that is more due to the fact that (in western society at least) anti-intellectualism is at the forefront. Being smart is just not something to aspire to. Just look at what passes for mainstream celebrities nowadays. Not one of them is a celebrity because of their intellect.
Most (from what I see) are celebrities because they are rich, or because of some scandal (sexual or otherwise), or because they are just good at marketing themselves.
From what I can see, the "quiet genius" is no longer celebrated at all, in any field really. They may get a note in the news from time to time if they do something globally impressive, but otherwise the majority of society goes "meh" and continues staring at the Kardashians.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @10:51AM
From what I can see, the "quiet genius" is no longer celebrated at all, in any field really. They may get a note in the news from time to time if they do something globally impressive,
"He was a loner, a quiet guy, never talked to anyone," said the neighbors as another domestic terrorist was dragged from his basement by the SWAT team. Is your quiet suburban neighborhood harboring terrorists who use Tor to spread their radical antigovernment views on metadata collection? Call the homeland tip line today or your credit score could be affected.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2017, @11:13AM
Your "quiet genius" is now required to write grants that expire every 2 years and join committees to demonstrate sufficient service to the university. No-one is allowed to be quiet or have time to foment their genius. Get with the modern times, brah.
(Score: 1) by Lester on Sunday January 08 2017, @03:17PM
The chess lost its public interest after WW II. Alekhine was the last grandmaster. After him, chess turned a little into a team competition, with analysts etc. Alekhine and previous grandmasters, Capablanca etc, played alone with no more help than their brains.
After WW II chess was just another battle field un the cold war. Fisher was just pawn for USA government. And USSR dumped a lot of resources on chess (created chess schools, backed champions etc).
About the quite genius. It's not a problem of western culture, it's a problem of popular vs elitist culture. Old times culture was a few people's culture. I don't think a peasant in the middle age knew who Descartes, Goethe, Mozart was.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday January 06 2017, @04:54PM
Are there celebrities in the FPS videogame area? because none of them can beat the reflexes of a bot. It takes the very top players to beat a top level bot, usually because of some bug, sloppy programming. And those bots are not made to specifically win.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Friday January 06 2017, @07:05PM
Have you never heard of Magnus Carlsen? He seems roughly as famous as Kasparov was.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday January 06 2017, @08:23PM
In the US there were only chess stars for a few years, basically from when Fisher started his climb toward the championship until the guy who beat him lost it. And the peak was when Fisher was challenging for world champion. A year or two after then the "chess coffee-shop", HardCastle's, in Berkeley folded. It's been decades since I've seen a game played in public.
Partially this is due to increased competition. Computer games expanded during that period, and it also became a lot easier to play on-line...but that doesn't draw in kibitzers, so it doesn't add to the popularity. And partially it's because there's no longer nationalism pushing it. And partially it's because it's against the flow of the current decades, which have returned to their normal anti-intellectualism. (When I was in high school during the 1950's, the chess club was only of interest to a very few. No members were socially popular.)
If you look though US history, anti-intellectualism has been dominant though most of the time. Usually not strongly dominant, but still dominant. I think this last election is the first time it's been dominant enough to decide a national election, though.
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