Kaj_Sotala comments on AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol - Less Wrong

17 Post author: gjm 09 March 2016 12:22PM

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Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 09 March 2016 06:41:42PM *  12 points [-]

I found this interesting: AlphaGo's internal statistics predicted victory with high confidence at about three hours into the game (Lee Sedol resigned at about three and a half hours):

For me, the key moment came when I saw Hassabis passing his iPhone to other Google executives in our VIP room, some three hours into the game. From their smiles, you knew straight away that they were pretty sure they were winning – although the experts providing live public commentary on the match weren’t clear on the matter, and remained confused up to the end of the game just before Lee resigned.

Hassabis’s certainty came from Google’s technical team, who pore over AlphaGo’s evaluation of its position, information that isn’t publicly available. I’d been asking Silver how AlphaGo saw the game going, and he’d already whispered back: “It’s looking good”.

And I realised I had a lump in my throat. From that point on, it was crushing for me to watch Lee’s struggle.

Towards the end of the match, Michael Redmond, an American commentator who is the only westerner to reach the top rank of 9 dan pro, said the game was still “very close”. But Hassabis was frowning and shaking his head – he knew that AlphaGo was definitely winning. And then Lee resigned, three and a half hours in.

Also this bit, suggesting that Lee might still win some matches:

Silver said that – judging from the statistics he’d seen when sitting in Google’s technical room – “Lee Sedol pushed AlphaGo to its limits”.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 09 March 2016 07:27:23PM 2 points [-]

although the experts providing live public commentary on the match weren’t clear on the matter

This could be motivated thinking/speaking though.

Comment author: entirelyuseless 10 March 2016 06:16:55PM *  4 points [-]

I watched the whole of both games played so far. In the first game, Redmond definitely thought that Lee Sedol was winning, and at a point close to the end, he said, "I don't think it's going to be close," and I am fairly confident he meant that Lee Sedol would win by a substantial margin. Likewise, he definitely showed real surprise when the resignation came: even at that point, he expected a human victory.

In the second game, he was more cautious and refused to commit himself, but still seemed to think there were points where Lee Sedol had the advantage. However, in this one he did end up admitting that AlphaGo was winning long before the end came.

Comment author: Vaniver 10 March 2016 07:32:41PM 8 points [-]

In particular, I thought Redmond's handling of the top right corner was striking. He identified it as a potential attack for white several times before white's actual attack, and then afterwards thought that a move was 'big' that AlphaGo ignored; later, on calculation, he realized that it was only (if I recall correctly) a one point move.

It looked to me like an example of the human bias towards the corners and walls, combined with his surprise at some of AlphaGo's moves that made significant changes in the center.

Comment author: Vaniver 09 March 2016 07:30:26PM 3 points [-]

This could be motivated thinking/speaking though.

The English commentators seemed to take a significant time to come up with score estimates, to the point where I think they were genuinely uncertain in a way that AlphaGo wasn't. (What would be interesting, for example, would be to look at AlphaGo's estimation of the score of historical tournament games that had commentary and see how well the two track each other.)

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 09 March 2016 07:40:42PM 7 points [-]

Myungwan Kim seemed to be quicker to reach the right conclusion - IIRC, by the time that the fighting in the lower right corner ended, he was pretty sure of AlphaGo winning, to the extent of guessing that a move that lost AlphaGo around 1.5 points down there was because AG would win anyway.

Comment author: ChristianKl 10 March 2016 12:30:41PM 0 points [-]

I think it's more likely that the Go professionals (both the commentator and the Lee) simply score certain patterns a few points differently than AlphaGo did then there being motivated thinking in the sense that the commentator wants Lee to win.

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