Young Korean pro Kim Eunji banned for 1 year for AI cheating

[Uberdude]

Are we even sure she did cheat? False confessions happen, particularly if you are promised or even suspect or are advised by your parents/coach that doing so will get you a lighter punishment (e.g 1 year ban) than maintaining innocence and then harsher punishment (lose pro or life ban) if found guilty later.

[Uberdude]

Since we aren't good at controlling the risk of getting caught, yet, this is the only variable we can do something concretely about.

Where was she when she played the game? At home? If so was she required to record herself? In the KBA it's surely harder, but not impossible, to cheat.

[Kirby]

Are we even sure she did cheat? False confessions happen, particularly if you are promised or even suspect or are advised by your parents/coach that doing so will get you a lighter punishment (e.g 1 year ban) than maintaining innocence and then harsher punishment (lose pro or life ban) if found guilty later.

Of course it's possible that the confession is false, but I doubt it. Kim Eunji's mom didn't really think it was a big deal, and was asking if she could get off with just apology + cleaning the bathrooms for a month (without the 1 year ban).

So if someone is inducing her to make a false confession:
1. It's pretty darn coincidental that Kim Eunji's moves line up so well with AI - a lot better than anybody else in the world
2. Whoever is persuading her is probably not her mom!

[SoDesuNe]

Since we aren't good at controlling the risk of getting caught, yet, this is the only variable we can do something concretely about.

Sure we can. Suppose we do a life-time-ban for every cheater. What if you still found people cheating? Would you seek even harsher sentences? You surely can't back down now, can you?

Maybe the whole pro scene would even change: One mistake could end years of training and with no real alternative to fall back on. Since most pros have to start young, I can imagine parents deciding against this career option for their children.

Or even facing the stress of cheating allegations. Might end up baseless but in the meantime your whole life can flash before your eyes. And knowing the internet: Will you actually ever been cleared?

What was the goal again?

If the goal is actually to prevent cheating or to come across as being able to handle the situation (because I don't think you can totally prevent cheating)... careful, broken record incoming... start looking at a sport who dealt with this for a wee bit longer: Beer pong!

[Kirby]

I don't think I've seen the apology letter posted here, yet. I found an image here: http://mlbpark.donga.com/mp/b.php?p=61& ... jXGY-ALmlq

Not sure how long it'll stay up, so I transcribed it, with a rough translation:

안녕하세요 김은지 입니다.
이영구 사범님과의 온라인 대국중에 이것저것 클릭해보다가 홈이열렸는데 제 바둑이 나와서 아무생각없이 참고를 보았습니다.
제가 너무 이기고 싶은 마음에 순간적으로 잘 못된 선택을 했습니다.
그 후에 사범님들과 엄마가 물어보셨지만, 너무 겁이 나고 무서워서 솔직하게 말씀드리지 못했습니다.
제 잘못에대해 정말 많이 반성하고 있습니다.
국대에서 평소에 저한테 너무 잘해주신 이영구사범님께 정말 죄송합니다. 이영구사범님은 오히려 저를 걱정하고 계신다는 엄마 말씀을 듣고 정말 더 죄송했습니다.
저를 많이 아껴주신 국대 감독님과 코치님 마음을 아프게해서 정말 죄송합니다.
이렇게 큰 물의를 일으켜 프로기사 선배님들께도 정말 죄송합니다.
저를 여러 가지로 도와주신 분들과 바둑사이트 쪽지로 항상 응원해주신 분들께 실망시켜 드려서 정말 죄송합니다.
그리고 바둑을 사랑하시는 바둑팬 분들께도 정말 죄송합니다.
이번일을 계기로 앞으로는 절대 이런 행동을 하지 않겠습니다.
제 잘못에 대해 주시는 벌을 받고, 기회가 주어진다면 지금보다 더 열심히 공부해서 한국바둑에 큰 도움이 될 수 있는 김은지가 되겠습니다.

김은지 올림

Hi, this is Kim Eunji.
During my online match with Lee Younggu, I clicked here and there and the homepage opened up, and my Go game popped up and I looked at the (AI) reference without thinking.
I wanted to win too much, so in the moment, I made the wrong choice.
Teachers and my mom asked about it after that, but I was too scared to tell you honestly.
I am really self-reflecting on what I did wrong.
I'm really sorry to Lee Younggu, who has always been so good to me (in Kukdae). I was even more sorry to hear from my mom that Lee Younggu had been worrying about me.
I am very sorry that I broke the hearts of the Kukdae coaches and supervisors who cared for me a lot.
I am very sorry to the other professional go players and my seniors for causing such a big controversy.
I am very sorry to disappoint the people who helped me in various ways and to those who always cheered me on with messages via the Go website.
And I'm really sorry to all of the Go fans who love Go.
Taking this as an opportunity, I will never do this in the future.
After receiving punishment for my mistake, if I’m given another chance, I’ll become a person who studies harder than I have up until now and be a big help to Korean Go.


Posted by Kim Eunji

[Kirby]

Sure we can. Suppose we do a life-time-ban for every cheater. What if you still found people cheating? Would you seek even harsher sentences? You surely can't back down now, can you?

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.

Maybe the whole pro scene would even change: One mistake could end years of training and with no real alternative to fall back on. Since most pros have to start young, I can imagine parents deciding against this career option for their children.

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!

What was the goal again?

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.

[Uberdude]

Hi, this is Kim Eunji.
During my online match with Lee Younggu, I clicked here and there and the homepage opened up, and my Go game popped up and I looked at the (AI) reference without thinking. I wanted to win too much, so in the moment, I made the wrong choice.

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.

[John Fairbairn]

During my online match with Lee Younggu, I clicked here and there and the homepage opened up, and my Go game popped up and I looked at the (AI) reference without thinking.

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.

[dust]

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.

[Uberdude]

During my online match with Lee Younggu, I clicked here and there and the homepage opened up, and my Go game popped up and I looked at the (AI) reference without thinking.

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.

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!).

[explo]

The sponsors pay prize money to the winner of the tournament for *playing go* - not for copying moves from an open source AI. Tournaments have rules, and you get prize money in accordance to those rules. If some non-go player barges into the next Samsung cup and steals the prize money without actually playing any games, the sponsor still dishes out the same amount of money... But it's still stealing, is it not?

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?

From a game theoretical perspective, if someone has no morals, the value in cheating is: ChanceOfNotGettingCaught*ValueOfUsingAI + RiskOfGettingCaught*NegativeValueOfPunishmentForUsingAI.

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.

[Bill Spight]

I don't think I've seen the apology letter posted here, yet. I found an image here: http://mlbpark.donga.com/mp/b.php?p=61& ... jXGY-ALmlq

Not sure how long it'll stay up, so I transcribed it, with a rough translation:

Hi, this is Kim Eunji.
During my online match with Lee Younggu, I clicked here and there and the homepage opened up, and my Go game popped up and I looked at the (AI) reference without thinking.

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 wanted to win too much, so in the moment, I made the wrong choice.
Teachers and my mom asked about it after that, but I was too scared to tell you honestly.

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.)

[mhlepore]

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.

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.

[Kirby]

Hi, this is Kim Eunji.
During my online match with Lee Younggu, I clicked here and there and the homepage opened up, and my Go game popped up and I looked at the (AI) reference without thinking.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Ferran]

You could even argue that her current response - plausibly denying that she intended to cheat - is a calculated response.

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