The Importance of Go

In amongst the constant flood of public relations releases from the futurists, the technologists and the academic supporters arguing that artificial intelligence in machines is just around the corner and inevitable, it was very refreshing to read an article "No go for computers" by Ben MacIntyre of the London Times in which he shoots this myth in the foot at least for the time being. He points out that despite all attempts to develop a programmed perfect play for the Chinese game of GO, a competent teenager can still beat the most sophisticated computer with ease.The best computer Go software only manages to reach consistently the intermediary single range 10 level. Many humans have achieve this level by studying and playing regularly for less than one year. A top level professional player is some who reaches 30.

Generally acknowledged as the oldest game in the world, the first records of GO can be traced back to 2300BC when a Chinese Emperor designed it for his son supposedly of limited intellect to teach him discipline, concentration, and balance. It spread through East Asia - Mainland China, Korea and Japan from 7th century on and the latest boom in the game occurred in Japan in 2000 when a Japanese comic and anime production company combined to produce anime series Hikaru no Go. The purpose of the game, played on a board not quite square, 15:14 ratio, using back and white stones, is to stake out a larger territory by tactically placing stones and surrounding the opponents forces. It is a highly strategic game and very difficult to tell whether either player is winning.

The importance of GO as MacIntyre points out is that in order to become a reasonable proficient player you need to use all the hallmarks of human intelligence - adaptation to uncertainty, intuition, wisdom, the ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of other and a sense of mortality. Most importantly, one of the main attributes of a skilled GO player is the ability to be able to recognize patterns and attach values to them - just like we read faces. Computers cannot yet replicate any of these attributes.

These hallmarks of human intelligence though are considered soft and fuzzy topics by the Western scientific, business and academic disciplines. The reality is that these topics built on the cognitive sciences are the hard ones. They deal with emotions and matters that remain forever mysterious, unquantifiable and unmeasurable. What kind of civilization do we live in when our approach to these concepts is to try and write code for them.

It is human intelligence that provides content and content is king - not numbers or codes. That's why we endlessly invent stories in whatever medium. And that is why we read and interpret these stories endlessly. What would we do if our artificial intelligence service was able to do all our creative thinking for us?

Click here to read the entire article "No Go for Computer" by Ben McIntyre.