There really is a gap between a strong dan-level amateur and a pro player; pros routinely give large handicaps to amateurs to allow them a fair chance to win. Those of us who watched the game can say that there was a marked improvement in quality as Mogo was given more tine to work with. The pro did not use all 60 minutes on his clock; I believe he used about 10 or 12 minutes. The game is only a single data point, but he indicated that he might have difficulty winning with 8 stones as well; Mogo was actually ahead by more then 1.5 points, but in classic montecarlo style, did not maximize the win; it is indifferent to the size of the win.
I'll back David Doshay: in ten years, a supercomputer will play pros on an even basis - provided that Moore's Law continues to increase the power of supercomputers. I also believe that some algorithmic improvements, which previously were not useful, will be of value with more powerful processors. We have a saying "learn joseki, lose three stones". Lower-level players learn book moves, but do not know how to preserve their advantage. With ten-minute games, Mogo was in that state - unable to preserve the advantage. When given 60 minutes, it had a playing style which could generate joseki plays at need - but it consumed a lot of time. This is interesting - given enough time and processing power, an algorithm which knows nothing about joseki or opening books will converge to joseki. These are plays which many very smart humans have studied for thousands of years; it is not surprising that they should be optimal or near-optimal. Terry McIntyre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> “Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.” Benjamin Disraeli, Speech in the House of Commons [June 15, 1874] ----- Original Message ---- From: Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: computer-go <computer-go@computer-go.org> Sent: Friday, August 8, 2008 10:16:35 AM Subject: Re: [computer-go] Re: mogo beats pro! I think events like this are great. They generate interest and excitement and are great fun. But they have very little scientific value. They are wide open for speculation, non-objective analysis, etc. Often strong players fail to take matches like this seriously because they are exhibitions with nothing particular at stake. I don't know if this was the case or not but I know it is happens. Also, it seems silly to me to find super strong players only to heavily handicap them. What's with that? I know of course why, nobody cares about an exhibition match with an ordinary player an thus it has value. But it really underscores the nature of this kind of exhibition, not really a significant scientific experiment. No serious conclusions are possible. It's also rather silly to rank moves and not performance in general over many games. Such and such a move was a 5 dan move, this other move was a kyu level move, etc. This is a sound bite to make people happy but isn't very quantifiable. Nevertheless, I have high praise that such an event took place, it's always super-cool to be able to utilize such a powerful machine and this was a good excuse to do so. I am left relatively confused about the outcome however. Someone gave a computer a bunch of stones and it was able to beat a strong player. Is that supposed to be exciting? I think I would simply be embarrassed that it was believed that so many stones were necessary to even the match. (Of course compared to a few years ago, this is an impressive victory for a computer go program, although only a single data point.) I hope I don't come across as being critical, I think this was a great idea and such matches should be arranged whenever possible. I just get a little embarrassed when too much significance is made of it. - Don On Fri, 2008-08-08 at 10:13 -0400, Robert Waite wrote: > I was in the KGS room for a couple of hours before the match and a > couple after. I was very surprised by the result as many were. > > There still is a lack of clear information about the event. For > example, when Kim said that the computer plays at maybe 2 or 3 dan... > does he mean professional or amateur pro? The supercomputer itself is > unclear... some had said it would be 3000+ cores... for the game they > said 800 processors. Some said it was indeed 3000+ cores.. because > each processor was 4 core. But I never found a clear answer on this. > The records of discussion are in MogoTitan's sgf records.. but the > discussions in the computer go room and perhaps private rooms are not > recorded (at least that I know of). If someone did give this > information, it was very easy to lose track of when 500 people were > observing the match. Tonight I am probably going to go through the > records to see if any more information can be gleaned. > > One person who seemed to be in the room with Kim said that he was > laughing and clapping at some of the computer's moves. One person in > this list, but not the AGA eJournal, mentioned that Kim used about 11 > minutes time.. where the computer used around 50. This was surprising > to me... Kim is reported to say that he felt having extra time would > not have helped. To me... this seems a little odd. He may have used it > as a tactic to give the computer less thinking time (if Mogo was > indeed thinking during Kim's turn). He also might have done this to > show that the computer is quite a bit weaker than him. It is really > hard to tell what really happened without a good report on the event. > AGA eJournal has been pretty vague about information so far.. the > clapping and laughing indicates that Kim enjoyed playing the computer > and my feeling from what I have seen so far is that he was not playing > the computer as if he was playing a professional tournament. > > Anyway.. it was a huge event. It's almost like the first computer to > reach shodan amateur (not exactly.. but in a way). My information > about Mogo is pretty light... but it seems that there is a chance that > one day.. the source will be opened up. This is completely a guess and > I don't wish to spread false info... but Mogo appears to have been a > grad student's work.. and when they finished their degree.. they > passed the source onto other researchers at their university. I am not > able to find the text that I am thinking about... but there was a > sentence to the tune of "the source code is not available yet" and one > of the big guys that was behind this event seems to have feelings the > GNU is great and that source should be available (in general). I do > however feel that they have worked hard and have had a big success... > so they do deserve to have an edge at the moment.. as long as the > source is given out eventually. I am particularly interested in what > they did to make it scale well to many nodes. > > So congrats to the Mogo team and here is to a nice outlook for the > future of computer go :) > > > > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > computer-go@computer-go.org > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
