Rumor time: AlphaGo vs Ke Jie?

[yoyoma]

http://www.cyberoro.com/news/news_view. ... =1&cmt_n=0

Article title: "The IGF announced that the Chinese Go association and Google are in the middle of negotiations about a Ke Jie vs AlphaGo match".

The IGF secretary-general said, "negotiations are still in the early stages, so the time and place have not been set. Personally I hope it will be within the year".

The article also mentions that the previous match was broadcast on Youtube, but access to Youtube is restricted in China. They don't say much more about this except a vague, "The Chinese Go association must think the Chinese government's attitude about this much have changed."

BTW the IGF meeting was held at the location of the WAGC, which is starting now. L19 thread:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=13196

[Bonobo]

As was reported on the German DGoB forum, Yang Jun'an, the new president of the IGF, has just officially announced (at the WAGC) that they indeed will play. No date has been announced, though.


And then there’s this chinadaily.com article from 2016-05-31:

[..]
Now it looks like another man versus machine battle is on the horizon. The world's top Go (or Weiqi) player, 19-year-old Chinese Ke Jie, is likely to compete with an AI-powered Go-playing system in October in Hainan province, according to a tweet on Chinese Twitter-like Sina Weibo.

The tweet is believed to have been posted by the account of Ke's official fan club. It also quoted a picture originally tweeted by Ke on his personal Weibo account, illustrating that he is confident he will defeat AlphaGo even though the system has defeated South Korean Go master Lee Sedol.

Yu Lei, vice president of Chinese smartphone manufacturer Gionee, said, “The competition between AlphaGo and Ke Jie is very likely to be held in October.
[..] ”

(there’s more if you visit the link)

[wineandgolover]

October? I can wait that long. Please be true!

I would wager that AG has continued training. I'd also wager on AG to pitch a shutout.

Yay! In the meantime, please share some AG v AG games, DeepMind.

[pookpooi]

If china promise google that it can lay google service there if AlphaGo win against ke jie, then Google will pour money into deepmind as much as they need and something close to godlike play might happen lol

BTW this is the torture time for me, DeepMind will go into submarine mode and won't be back to the surface until the match start

[yishn]

If china promise google that it can lay google service there if AlphaGo win against ke jie, then Google will pour money into deepmind as much as they need and something close to godlike play might happen lol

Wow, if this is actually true, I would kinda feel guilty for wanting AlphaGo to beat Ke Jie...

[Bonobo]

[..] DeepMind will go into submarine mode and won't be back to the surface until the match start

I wonder … wasn't there some “AI Summer School” planned? Or was it last year? I only remember faintly … wasn't there some announcement by Demis Hassabis? Maybe I’m just confused …

Wow, if this is actually true, I would kinda feel guilty for wanting AlphaGo to beat Ke Jie...

Interestingly, when the last games were played, I didn’t have any preference as to who “should” win, and I still don’t have any preference, Lee Sedol and Ke Jie both are humans, and the DeepMind team also are humans … what I want, though, is to see elegant gameplay.

[Jeromin]

If china promise google that it can lay google service there if AlphaGo win against ke jie, then Google will pour money into deepmind as much as they need and something close to godlike play might happen lol

BTW this is the torture time for me, DeepMind will go into submarine mode and won't be back to the surface until the match start

AlphaGo could probably defeat Ke Jie with the March version and equivalent hardware, judging by the thorough thrashing poor Lee Chang-Ho got. But I'd assume the engineers at Google left it running against itself, once they saw the repercussion the match had in the Asian world. Google are not ones to waste that kind of influence and leverage. If there is indeed an incentive of some kind of access to the Chinese market, the October version, plus double/triple the hardware, will indeed be godlike.

Jeromin

[Jeromin]

Then again, the Chinese Government is likely to want something more substantial than a Man Machine match. probably get their hands on those deep learning processors.

Jeromin

[Babelardus]

October? I can wait that long. Please be true!

I would wager that AG has continued training. I'd also wager on AG to pitch a shutout.

Yay! In the meantime, please share some AG v AG games, DeepMind.

To be honest, I had not expected AlphaGo to defeat Lee Sedol by 4-1. Losing by 2-3? Even winning by 3-2? Yeah. There were Go programs before, that could defeat top players at 4 stones handicap, so I could believe that a supercomputer could overcome those four stones and win 1 or 2 games against Lee Sedol... but 4? Didn't expect that.

If GoRatings.org is to be somewhat reliable (I don't know), then the strength difference between Lee Sedol and Ke Jie is only 80 points, and only 25 points between Ke Jie and Alpha Go. If Google feeds all available Ke Jie games into Alpha Go, and then train a new version to specifically defeat him, I think Ke Jie doesn't stand a chance.

He will be effectively playing against an opponent that has trained for like 500 years to defeat him.

[pookpooi]

DeepMind said AlphaGo vs. Ke Jie news is just the rumor

https://twitter.com/demishassabis/statu ... 3160563712

[sorin]

It is quite disappointing and unprofessional of the new IGF president to either start an unfounded rumor, or talk publicly about plans that are not finalized and not supposed to be talked about...

[seigenblues]

It is quite disappointing and unprofessional of the new IGF president to either start an unfounded rumor, or talk publicly about plans that are not finalized and not supposed to be talked about...

Strongly agree. I hope he didn't jeopardize the talks with these comments.

[wolfking]

Strongly agree. I hope he didn't jeopardize the talks with these comments.

I totally agree.
However maybe the media also read too much into the info leaked by Yang Jun'an. According to Qipai News Weibo (Chinese Twitter) post here: http://weibo.com/1730866981/DyMXC2gEZ?t ... 5318994056, Yang hinted that there were initial contact made between Google and Chinese Weiqi Association about a possible match between Ke Jie and AG. When Korean journalists pressed for details, Yang said they were nowhere near discussing detailed time, location or format for the match. This does not necessarily contradict what Hasabis said in his twitter.