I'd like to know what people think about using AI to play Go online (e.g. KGS, Tygem). Please feel free to put your reasons in a comment.

Hi CherryBlossom,

I picked "OK if you make it clear to your opponents,"
but all the options are not strictly independent of one another;
there are some overlaps.

Option 2 is almost the same as a bot offering a game.
You're basically a relayer between the bot and your (human) opponent.
With occasional "tweaks" ( plus misclicks, etc. ) from your wetware brain.

Option 3: if you create a separate, "anonymous" account and you use a bot --
well, clearly it's a problem if there are some prizes involved ( tourney, etc. ). However, if you only do this not for any prizes,
then again, the situation is similar to a bot offering a game.
Say this anonymous account makes it to 10d --
well, then you need not say anything:
everyone will figure out it's probably a bot.

Chess has quite a few years' head start in these discussions.

Using a bot to play online is okay with me if
1) You do it consistently. ( No playing sometimes with it and sometimes without )
2) You do not enter human-only tournaments

When I play online I don't really care what is on the other side: a bot, a human, or a combination - just as long as it plays with the same strength all the time, and thus has a reasonably accurate rating.

A corollary is this: I don't care if you play drunk. But you should be equally sloshed every time you play. Playing sometimes drunk and sometimes sober is as unethical as using a bot.

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What can someone gain by using the AI during the game and not after it?

I voted for option 2, but I suppose Aja Huang did 3 as Master/Magister (at least initially, later opponents knew what it was) and I was okay with that (but maybe the pros he beat up weren't!) .

Dopamine.

I use separate accounts.

I picked 3, with the caveat that I think you shouldn't act human. If you start chatting, talking about yourself, etc, I think you've crossed the line to pretending that it's you. The opponent should be able to wonder "is this a bot?"

I can't decide if this is a silly opinion or not.

As for Joaz's comments about playing drunk, it's not clear that two beers has a great effect on performance than playing while very tired, or upset, or distracted.

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I am serious, what is the educational value of using AI during the game? I am assuming the only reason someone does this is to improve and not just cheat, or experiment or have fun or whatever.
The only reasons i can think of can be achieved by analysis with the AI after the game. On top of that i can think of at least a couple of reasons why doing so might impact your overall game negatively.
So, unless someone convinces me that using AI during the game will make me a better player, i see no reason to do so and i'm strongly against it in games that matter. In casual ones, i don't really mind if my opponent uses it.

I didn't vote, because using AI would not be any fun for me. And for casual online play I would not care what my opponent did.

That said, when I learned go it was common practice among amateurs to allow take backs. I did not take moves back myself, because I felt that doing so would hinder my learning. But I liked the relaxed atmosphere of those games. Nobody took themselves too seriously. Also, games were more fun when a blunder did not suddenly end the game. I would actually welcome it if my opponent used AI to avoid blunders. I would want to know, though.



Checking your moves with AI in real time, whether you played the AI move or not, could be an educational benefit by providing immediate feedback. The immediacy makes it more effective.

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Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Bots will give you answers.


Learning to ask better questions.

See https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/issue3-case

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During the actual game, you can't spend so much time as offline to check variations. In my case, even if i played the suggested moves, i would still have to analyze offline the different outcomes as i usually do. The amount of time i spent on a single game is approximately 30 min. and obviously i couldn't do that during the game.

But, my main concern is that playing even semi-blindly computer moves makes you dull, cultivates bad habits, discourages reading and so much more. I have seen this happen in chess with people trusting engines and becoming basically slaves. Also, most of the times in chess computer moves are not "human" and you gain nothing by trying to copy without deep understanding. I suspect something similar might be true for go. Also, some times i have noticed leela says a move is good, but after some depth it changes her mind.

In any case, i am not convinced that using AI during the game can make you a better player. Even if it did, i wouldn't use it as a matter of principle.

Have we reached the point where we're meeting people on the boards who haven't seen Hikaru No Go?

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Occupy Babel!

I picked "Other".

It's fine as long as you disclose it.

I'm surprised that wasn't one of the options. It can be fine under other conditions as well, but that's my "flash" answer.

The key to me is, are you lying or committing fraud (moral fraud even if it isn't legal fraud)? If you're not, then it's OK.

Can anyone guess that I'm a libertarian?



TCS

So option 2 minus the separate account? "It's ok if you use a separate account that clearly says using AI (in username or user info, or tell opponent before game)"

That's the one I voted for and I have two main reasons:
1) the honesty/deception angle, which ties into respecting your opponent
2) not messing up the ranking system and people's reasonable expectation to have a decent game based on matching ranks (so broken by having wildly different strengths on the same account).

So 2) is not a concern to you?

(and for this reason I disagree with Joaz that sometimes playing drunk is as bad as playing with a bot: you might be breaking 2 but not 1, and I think 1 is more important).

The rating system needs to have some kind of external reference, and not just be determined self-referencially.

In person, the self-referential scheme works fine. On line it's very different, and works much less well, and must be supplemented. As a crude low level example, the Igowin rankings don't change, although there's probably a better standard.

As I write this, I realize that I don't think I understand the problem that you're concerned about. Could you elaborate a bit?

Thx,

TCS

External anchors for a rating system are not what I am talking about (though I don't see how a self-referential online system like a go server is any worse than a self-referential offline system like EGF or AGA grades).

Let's say we have Bob, a human 5k on KGS. On a good day maybe he is 4 or 3k strength and can occasionally beat such players on even. On a bad day maybe 6 or 7k. When he's drunk maybe 8k (or maybe 4k, I know someone whose drunk account was higher ranked than his regular). But 5k is a sensible average so if another 5k like Mary wants to play a reasonably well matched game online then the ranking system pairs them and they can enjoy a nice game.

Now let's say Bob on his 5k KGS account uses LeelaZero (super pro level) 1 game in 5. If he is paired against 5k Mary he absolutely smashes her and she has no fun. Next he (not LZ) plays and loses to another 5k, then beats one. His rank will go up a bit from the LZ wins but not much seeing as 4 games in 5 he plays like the 5k he is. I think this is a bad situation and should be avoided, a primary purpose of the ranking system is to make well-matched games and by sometimes using LZ Bob is perverting it. Also if his rank went up to 1k* then when he plays real 1ks even they have a less enjoyable mismatched game against a 5k (or get smashed by LZ).

*If the LZ wins are only against ~5ks then I doubt it will get this high, at least not for a long time, so not the 1/5 weighted average of 5k and 15d. If on the other hand Bob somehow persuaded 9ds to play him with his 5k account even and then beat them with LZ then his rank would go up a lot. But if he sometimes loses to 5ks then you are basically asking the ranking system to answer an impossible question to which there is no good answer.

There seems to be widespread objection to the practice of "sandbagging". So isn't playing with undisclosed AI assistance effectively sandbagging?

Sandbagging is (intentionally) playing with a rank lower than your strength, usually because it's fun to beat up weaker people (and to do this you resign games you are winning). There are grey areas, such as temporary rank inaccuracies, an inaccurate low rank because you timeout a lot, a server not allowing you to register with an accurate rank so you have to work your way up through the ranks (e.g. Haylee 3p starting as a 5d on Tygem because that's the highest you can register, I don't count that as bad sandbagging), or playing on a low-ranked account for teaching (e.g. dwyrin, I think this is kinda fishy sandbaggery if you don't tell the opponent, do the ends justify the means?). So if your account says 5k and you are sometimes 15d LeelaZero then yes that's sandbagging. But if you are always LeelaZero (disclosed or not) and your account says 15d that's not sandbagging, it's just an accurate rank. Or if you use LeelaZero to make your account 15d and then start playing with your 5k human moves that's what I call heliumbagging.

Ah, OK, so you're talking about an automated matching system that matches people based on the rank that it has for them. That makes more sense. That was probably clear from the early discussion , but I didn't pick up on it.

All automated systems have a higher "risk" in this regard than in-person playing, particularly any group of people that you play with regularly. There are social clues that you see in-person that we can't yet transmit online. Social pressures as well.

So, the "payoff" for diddling with your ranking is that you get to beat up on lesser players?? Really?

How prevalent is that disorder?

Thanks for the clarification!

TCS