American Go E-Journal

At an all-AI go competition held in China, Japan’s DeepZenGo took first place and then bested top Chinese pro Kong Jie 9p, who was being assisted by one of the AI runners up, CGI, from Taiwan. Jie was able to choose which AI to use as an assistant, and opted for CGI over the Chinese system FineArt, which had come into the tournament as a favorite. Among the 12 contestant systems, one North American entrant, MuGo by Brian Lee, came in 11th. MuGo was only six or so months old, and not that strong yet, but Lee was pleased to play against other systems, and preparing for this event with a short lead time was good motivation to work harder. “It was good to have a goal. I’d been working on it alone for four months, and it’s difficult to construct imaginary castles when there’s no one looking at it but yourself.” Scheduling conflicts kept other North American Go programmers, like Dave Fotland, away and Facebook has not been working on its system actively. The AlphaGo group did not attend, with the final versions of AlphaGo having retired from competition after the match with Ke Jie 9p in May. The competition took place in Ordos City, China, at the first ever Chinese Go Congress, a well-attended event that brought together 5,000 mostly amateur attendees, according to organizers.
– Andy Okun, Special Correspondent