American Go E-Journal

Your Move/Readers Write: On AlphaGo, an air of defeat, and a haiku

Monday August 28, 2017

“At the recent US Go Congress I sensed an air of defeat among some of the players with respect to AlphaGo,” writes John O’Conner. “They gave 2017.08.27_alphago-lee-sedolme the impression that they consider the study of go to be somewhat of a dead end process because they believe that no one will ever be able to compete with AlphaGo. Well I think just the opposite, and here’s why. It is human nature to observe, study, and discover. We see this in astronomy, geometry, electronics, and really in any scientific area. It’s how we learn to live our lives. I believe that as we observe and study AlphaGo, we will discover new concepts that will lead to the defeat of AlphaGo. Of course those new concepts will be programmed into ‘BetaGo’, and the cycle will continue. So I think that this is perhaps the most exciting time to be playing and studying go, with the goal of being the first to surpass AlphaGo. I’ve re-stated it in the haiku below.”

AlphaGo is king
Wood, fire, earth, metal, water
So who will be next

photo: Lee Sedol playing AlphaGo in 2016