Go AI Beats Professional 5th Dan Grade Master - A Little Bit
The game of Go has been one of the last big board games where artificial intelligence strength was nowhere near experienced players, let alone master grade professionals. During a recent Go tournament in Paris however, a professional 5th Dan grade player, Catalin Taranu, was beaten by a computer program (diagram and picture of the match below).
The catch is, it was played only on a 9×9 field, which is smaller than the usual 19×19 field. This no doubt had part in the victory, as the overwhelming state-space is reduced from 10170 to 1038 possible game positions (chess: about 1052).
According to Earth News, that was the first ever recorded victory of a machine over a Go master (in a sanctioned non-blitz game). The culprit is the MoGo artificial intelligence engine. It has been developed by INRIA - the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control - running on a Bull NovaScale supercomputer. During the 3-game match on the 22nd March 2008, MoGo managed to win the second game. On a 19×19 board it was weaker, losing with against Taranu, who had a handicap of 9 stones.
About ten years ago, the then strongest Go program, The Many Faces of Go, lost against a master level player although he had a 29 stone handicap.
To be honest, this is about the speed I expect research to have here, sooner or later processing power and better algorithms will make computers unbeatable in any game with logical rules, and Go is argued to be the most complex of all games. If you happen to know a complexity theorist, she will be happy to certify you that the complexity of Go is nasty EXPTIME-complete, which is not where you want to be (assuming you are a computer program and want to be fast when you’re grown up), really. That’s why it is nigh to impossible to ever “solve” Go, but it shouldn’t be too hard to win against us puny earthlings - even on a proper-sized board.
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Comments (3 comments)
Dang, I was pretty excited about this article till I read this:
> It was played on a 9×9 field, which is smaller than the usual 19×19 field.
As anyone who plays Go can attest (and as your numbers point out), this is such an enormous reduction in complexity that it really demolishes the claims of the title and first paragraph. Playing on 9×9 is a completely different game. It’s completely tactical, where there’s really one battle going on, with almost no forethought or planning. In 19×19 there are potentially dozens of battles going on, each potentially interacting with the others in a myriad of complex ways.
Personally, I would change the title and first paragraph to reflect the true nature of this accomplishment.
Bill / April 12th, 2008, 0:03 / #
You’re right, Bill. I’ve emphasized the catch a bit.
Still a good achievement though, we need to take the first step before the second. Towards the cliff.
Robin / April 12th, 2008, 2:37 / #
Thanks
And agree completely that it is a good achievement.
Bill / April 13th, 2008, 16:19 / #
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