My decision would be, if it's confirmed that you're cheating, you're not a pro anymore. I'm not asking for jail time, like the other amateur cheater got.

I am not naive enough to believe that we can catch all cheaters. But I am hopeful enough that we can maintain integrity in the organization by appropriately eliminating the sources of cheating that we know about. Kim Eunji is one such source.



Not just any mistake - cheating with AI in a pro tournament. Everybody makes mistakes with various things in their lives - some people drive over the speed limit. But sometimes, one mistake (e.g. murdering someone) can have life-changing consequences. It depends on the severity of the mistake.

If a pro go player makes a mistake like accidentally taking a ko when they weren't supposed to or something like that, there'd be no career changing consequence. They'd probably just lose that game. But in this case, it's a big mistake to use AI in a pro tournament - you are robbing the tournament of its very meaning.

And if we tolerate it, we are saying that future tournaments have no meaning!



The goal is to say that cheating is not tolerated. Being a professional player and cheating are not compatible. You cheat, you are not pro.

The alternative is to say that we are OK with having pros who have cheated in the past. This is not a philosophy that I respect. How can I respect a game that Kim Eunji has played going forward? How do I know she didn't cheat? How do I know she didn't use AI for just part of the game and not the rest?

It's impossible to know for sure that *any* given pro has cheated, but with Kim Eunji, we know.

Anyway, I'm getting a little bored with this, and I don't think I'm giving much further information - except for the apology letter I posted in the previous post. I'm going to get some popcorn and watch the rest of this thread from other folks.

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be immersed

Does this mean as she was playing on the computer in some go server software, she didn't focus on her game and changed to a web browser (or some other window on the go server?) which was broadcasting her game with live AI commentary and she then used those moves from the commentary?

If so, and it's the truth, this is a crime of opportunity, which whilst still serious is less so than one of premeditation*. An easy way to reduce these is to reduce the opportunities: playing with monitoring, using special software that restricts use of other programs. AFAIK pros still just use the standard Tygem or Oro web client for their important online games, so could she just switch from her playing game tab to the commentary one? That's dumb. (Specialised software could also have technical improvements like secure client side clocks to mitigate network lag timeouts.) A determined, premeditated cheater can still get round those, but this sounds more like a case of giving in to an easily available temptation with insufficient moral fortitude and fear of punishment to prevent it. Mum thinking it wasn't a big deal and would warrant just a slap on the wrist can't have helped with that, so she needs a stern talking to, maybe no longer allowed to be her manager/agent and instead Eunji is told a condition of playing is she pays a more responsible manager? Park's criticism on the adults around her makes sense.

* But even so I think 1 year ban is on the light end, the clean the toilets or 3 month ban some expected is way too low.

This reminds me of something I have observed more than once or twice in amateur go. A strong player walks by a game featuring his friend, smirks and makes a remark, probably unthinkingly, e.g. "Oh, that'll be good example of the L-shape is dead!" The poor actual player, the friend, is then left with a dilemma: do I play to make the L shape, which I was going to do anyway, or do I avoid the impression of being helped and so play elsewhere?" But we all know how easy it is to convince ourselves we really were going to do something when in reality we had only very vaguely thought about it. Maybe that happens, here, but let's imagine the player reasons, "Why should I wimp out of a move I was going to play?" and plays the killing move.

The actual player's opponent thinks, "What L shape? Oh that one. I didn't see it and my opponent is just as weak as me, so if he played it he must be accepting help. And anyway, I really need to win this game - my promotion depends on it." So he goes to the referee and says, "I think my opponent cheated. I think you should award the game to me."

So who's the cheater? The bystander, the player-friend, or the person making a potentially false allegation?

I think we'd all recognise that the bystander was the cause of the mess, but was he witting or unwitting? And that doesn't mean that either of the two actual players were necessarily guilt-free. They didn't create the temptation but did they succumb to it?

What it boils down to, it seems to me, is that ultimately we have to expect the organisers to avoid such situations occurring. That's asking a lot (especially it seems when it comes to computer hardware) but one approach is zero tolerance.

Zero-tolerance gets a bad name among some people who think it means chopping hands off for theft. In fact it doesn't have to have anything to do with the level of punishment. Rather, it means you make it known, very, very clearly, that you will not tolerate even the suspicion of bad behaviour, and that if bad behaviour occurs a sanction (light or heavy) will apply automatically, irrevocably, without appeal, and possibly unfairly - but that's the price we have to pay for the greater good.

I came across a case yesterday. In an exam for entrance to an elite university here, a rule was announced by the university that no phones would be tolerated in the exam room, and no blips would be tolerated in the case of online examinees. This latter requirement was enforced in a way that I don't quite understand but it meant that if you clicked on another program apart from the actual exam you were automatically disqualified. If you thought that was too technologically risky for you, you had the option do the exam in real life in a local school.

I don't know if anyone fell foul of a technological blip, though with an application roster of about 15,000 people I imagine there was a good chance of that. But what I do know is that a young person (18 I was told) didn't pay enough attention and took his phone into the examination hall. He put it on his desk but switched off, i.e. he was not being covert.

The invigilators, operating remotely with cameras, saw this and automatically marked his paper at 0%. The student was not accused of cheating, frogmarched out or identified. His reputation (except for stupidity or attentiveness perhaps) was essentially intact. He was simply accused of breaking a rule - "no phones." This is true zero tolerance.

I think there may be a lesson there for go (and chess). You don't get punished for cheating as such. You get punished for creating an impression that you might be. That is, of course, backed by an ultra-stark and ultra-clear warning before the game, and a written acceptance by the players and/or a guardian (which can be a lifetime one-off acceptance when signing up to join an association) that this may sometimes create unfairness. In such a regime, age seems irrelevant and penalties don't have to be harsh.

As I understand it, this sort of regime (without the computers) exists in athletics. If you miss X urine tests or Y appointments you get an automatic period of disqualification. Nobody in officialdom says you actually cheated, but you did break the rules.

We're still in the early days of AI moral issues for Go. The line has to be drawn somewhere on what is not acceptable and how it will be enforced, and what rehabilitation opportunities should be provided, but it will take a while to get it right and needs feedback from practical experience.

I'd be wary of rushing into an absolutist position too soon - so the 1 year decision seems reasonably sensible to me.

You don't even need a bystander to talk. What if on my wanders to look at other boards I see them playing the same joseki as me, but further down a variation I had forgotten. Seeing the end shape could help remind me how I'm supposed to play. Or they are playing out the ko attack on a carpenter's square and I didn't know the 2-1 tesuji and seeing them do it helped me. Personally I think as the chances and amount of help are so low I'd rather allow that than ban wandering and watching other boards in the events I play in. But I could see the need for it in high stakes pro events (where they are all playing the so called flying dagger joseki!).

As long as games are being played, I still think that's not stealing the sponsors. That's definitly stealing from your opponents who may have won the game though.
Your first sentence is ambiguous. Is playing modern joseki playing go or copying moves from an open source AI?


Life is not a game. People make irrationnel decisions. Similar economic decisions can lead to different outcomes in different countries. You live in a country where the murder rate is lower overall in states without death penalty than in states with the death penalty.

Even by your formula, the outcome is unclear. If you sentence a definite ban arguing "surely nobody will dare try cheating now", some people might believe it and consider people won't cheat anymore. Now as a cheater with no morale, you are less likely to be suspected since "cheating is thing anymore". You increased NegativeValueOfPunishmentForUsingAI but you impacted ChanceOfNotGettingCaught and RiskOfGettingCaught in the wrong direction.

Here we see the lack of guidance by the Korean Baduk Association. The right thing for Kim to do at this point is to contact the referee and say what has happened. OC, that may well have led to forfeiting the game. I expect that that is what an adult pro would have done, except I doubt that an adult would have been "clicking here and there". I can certainly see a restless teenager doing so, however. Still, I would expect a teenager to contact some adult about the situation, such as her mother. Perhaps the KBA will come up with some rules and regulations such as not having any other program than the one for playing the game open on the computer, and saying what a player should do if she gets unauthorized information. (This would also apply in FTF tournaments, in situations such as Uberdude mentions, where the player happens to see other players playing the same joseki as in the player's own game.)



I don't know the facts, but did she copy only one move? If so, it must have been a doozy! The first time may have been a crime of opportunity, but after that we have premeditation.

As John Fairbairn points out, there is conduct that must be considered improper, even if it is not cheating. Furthermore, if the player gains unauthorized information that might help her play the game, she must report that herself. This level of ethics is something that I am familiar with in both bridge and golf. (About other sports I cannot say.)

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I would argue that the decision to cheat with AI in Go is much more rational/calculated than the decision to murder someone. And therefore, talking about deterrence is certainly reasonable here. You could even argue that her current response - plausibly denying that she intended to cheat - is a calculated response.


The question is, will is destroying this young girl’s future in professional Go substantially increase the integrity of the game? And if so, is it the only way? I’m not sure.

True... *If* what she is even telling the truth here. And who is to say that this is the only such incident? It’s the only one she’s apologized for, but it’s also the only match in which she was caught.



In some ways, Kim Eunji destroyed her own future. Even with the “punishment” she already received, her future as a respectable pro has changed course to say the least.

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be immersed

Well, if she did do it... Have you never seen a teenager go down the apology twirl? When they try to get an excuse for the excuse of the invention of an excuse for something that would have been much easier if they'd simply said it straight first? I've seen _adults_ do that.

Take care

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玄 之 玄

Yep. Maybe she IS lying and she DIDN'T cheat.

Take care.

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玄 之 玄

Another angle on this. Inseong recently introduced an anti-cheating committee into the Yunguseng Dojang. If someone is determined to be cheating, they are kicked out of the program.

Is he being too harsh? What if the participant is only 13?

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be immersed

You really think she’s the victim here, don’t you?

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be immersed

I don't think he is too harsh, but this is hardly the same situation.

Can you elaborate? One difference I see is that Eunji is robbing others of money, but in the Yunguseng Dojang, there’s no prize money on the line. Are there other differences that you find to be relevant?

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be immersed

The difference is obvious no? People excluded from the Yunguseng Dojang can continue to play go and take lessons elsewhere. For them, go is just a hobby.

Professionals who are banned for life have spent most of their lives developing just one skill, and can no longer get a job which values that skill.

1. An ex-pro can still make a living with teaching or YouTube, no problem. Just look at Kim Seongryong. They can also play go or do whatever. The only thing they are losing is affiliation with that pro organization.

2. In this case, the girl is 13 years old. She could go to middle school, high school, college, and live a normal life. No problem.

I can kinda get it if you think that people shouldn’t be excluded from go organizations for first offense cheating. I don’t share that opinion, but at least it’s fathomable.

But when you say an amateur organization can ban cheaters, but pros should get special status (ie. live above the law), then I believe you have a double standard.

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be immersed

Actually you could argue that all these teenage kids and all the baggage they brought with them (such as Mickey Moue time limits) have already decimated the careers of people like Kim Seong-ryong. That was done fairly enough (though allowing then in was perhaps a misguided move by the go associations), but now some little *****s want to rub salt in the wound Literally, almost, come to think of it, if you consider how they party their way through the CV miasma and end up killing their grannies.

I remember when I was a lad....

I agree that an ex-pro won't starve. Still, banning from a pro organization (=where you have your best chances to get a source of income, and where you have already invested 12 hours/day for many years) has much more impact on your life than banning from an amateur organization (=place where you spend a couple of hours a week, which can easily be replaced by an equivalent one).

I did say I didn't want to get into guilt or not, I believe, but I'll recap several items.

There are several questions: did she cheat? should she be punished? should she be the only one punished? how should she be punished? Why? Are we being consequent?

Also, there's a... call it a personal background. Where I come from, children's (and teens) participation in adult activities is heavily regulated and, by and large, followed in spirit as well as form. A child might earn a lot, might be climbing the steps of a profession that will make him (likely *him*, so far) millionaire in his teens. But he's still a child. There are duties towards his education and upbringing his environment can't simply toss aside for bucks.

Did she cheat? I don't know. There are two further levels, here. As a pro, I don't give a damn if she cheats or not. Not my business, not my association; I like games: if pros start doping their games, I'll follow amateurs (that's what I do with other sports). As a kid, if she cheated or not opens a can or worms. I've pointed several facets of it. And there are simply too many ways the words and actions of a teenager thrust into an adult world can be twisted and shaped. I don't trust three degress-removed accounts of what happened. Nor do I like what's transpiring about the process. As a kid.

Should she be punished? If there's enough evidence (and I mean evidence, not "my adults had me sign a confession"), sure. If there's not enough evidence, it's troublesome. The proportion of such punishment... it escapes my knowledge. I *am* against binary solution sets. This conversation is veering, time and again, towards "yes / no" and "but you saids". Not agreeing with expelling a kid for life does not equal "she should get scot free".

I already mentioned I do consider her adult enviroment partially responsible. To what extent, I don't know. But it wouldn't be the first time I learn of a kid thrown under the bus. "She did what!? Why, I'd never...!"

Also, and I think that's an elephant in the room (one of many), the even has put the KBA in the spotlight. Not in a good way. Leela zero has been out for 3 years. CoViD-19 has been in the open for almost a year. Shogi had its world-shattering scandal 4 years ago. And yet this has caught the procedures against cheating in the KBA out for drinks.

Now, why should she be punished also has implications in how severely she should be. If you want to teach *her* a lesson, then she has to be able to overcome that. If you want to teach *others* a lesson, she doesn't need to. What the *goal* of the punishment determines the punishment. And, right now, the only goal I see is to save the KBA's face. Which means nothing to me. Actually, it meant something a week ago: I'm respecting it less and less; not only because of this, but it's playing a part.

Then, the sentence you quoted links to my last question. Are we being consequent? Someone else would have to judge *me*, but I think that the same way we're turning this into a black/white question, we're choosing our own data. That's... questionable. Regarding that sentence... I'd be very wary of accepting the word of a teenager under such pressure, either way. But I find it quirky, at least, that we seem to accept that she was telling the truth when she said she cheated, but then question the truth of when she said she did. Let's be clear: she HAS lied. She has (*) both said "A" and "NOT A"; one of them has to be false. But this does not clear anything at all; rather, it muddies it further.

I'm sorry if I'm not being clear enough. I am not if I'm not being clear-CUT enough. Does that make sense?

Take care.

(*) I'm judging the data as I have it, not what she might have actually said or not. All I have, again, is data at several removes.

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玄 之 玄