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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: 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.