Gunnar_Zarncke comments on AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol - Less Wrong

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

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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.