American Go E-Journal » Go Spotting

Aliens and The Artificial Human: “Just finished watching the final episode of Ancient Aliens Season 13, episode 13,” writes Michael Bacon. “About twenty or so minutes into the program the focus was on Alpha Go vs Lee Sedol, who was called the World Go Champion. The segment, which was a few minutes in length, then moved on to Alpha Zero.” The episode is called “The Artificial Human.”

The Wheel of Time: “Maybe it has been reported before,” writes Peter Freedman, “but, in Robert Jordan’s series ‘The Wheel of Time’, often people enjoy a ‘game of stones’, which appears to be go.”

“During a recent Scrabble game, someone showed me this book,” writes Ted Terpstra.

Space Time: “Recently the very succesful PBS series ‘Space Time’ did two episodes on entropy, where they used the game of go to explain how entropy works,” writes Guillermo Molano. You can find the first episode here.
Thanks also to Daniel Gentry, David Kent and Peter St. John for spotting this.

Episode 80  of the Hardcore Leveling Warrior webtoon includes an appearance by a character named “Bubble,” a former pro go player whose skill is controlling bubbles.

Thanks to James Richard Spriggs for the tip!

American rapper, television personality, and actress (Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean’s 8) Awkwafina’s new video “Pockiez” features go fairly prominently. NOTE: the video also contains explicit lyrics.

Thanks to Adam VanderHook for passing this along.

Stone’s “Passions of the Mind: In Irving Stone’s biographic novel about Sigmund Freud, “The Passions of the Mind,” there is the following sentence, reports David Matson: “Sigmund stayed until one in the morning, playing Japanese Go.” It occurs in Section 9 of Book Two: The Longing Soul.

“1636: The Ottoman Onslaught”: “Go is mentioned briefly in ‘1636: The Ottoman Onslaught” by Eric Flint,” writes  Mike Goerss. “The novel is in a series of an alternate history where a small American town finds itself in the middle of Germany in 1632. Third to last page, speaking about fighting the Turks as they invade Austria: ‘It is more like a game of go than chess. . . It is more of a game of position than maneuver.'”

“The Next Move”: “AlphaGo Zero, Google’s experimental AI, exists to play Go. There is no awareness, only intelligence.” So begins John Cooper Hamilton’s “The Next Move,” a very short story about AlphaGo in Daily Science Fiction, sent along by Paul Celmer, who published a non-go story in DSF last July, “Spooky Action at a Distance.”

“The Incredible Inventions of Intuitive AI”: Maurice Conti’s “The Incredible Inventions of Intuitive AI” TED talk video mentions AlphaGo beating Lee Sedol, reports Shawn Ray.

Sylvester Stallone and Dave Bautista are shown playing go in the trailer for the new film “Escape Plan 2: Hades,” in which they must figure out how to break into the world’s best hidden prison, release their kidnapped team, and make it out alive. Not clear how playing go helps; let us know if you’ve seen it and have the answer.

Thanks to Daniel Chou for flagging this.

“The Row,” a brand-new short film about life and death, prominently features go. The 16-minute film stars Vondie Curtis-Hall as a prison warden who plays a final game of go with death row inmate Demetrius Grosse. The film is directed by Philiane Phang. “The filmmakers had chosen a game they thought reflected the situation, but wanted help with some equipment, showing the actors how to play the stones and such,” reports AGA president Andy Okun, who is acknowledged in the film credits.  The game depicted was the famous Honinbo Sansa Kashio Rigen triple ko game from 1582, with its suggestion of stalemate and ill fortune.