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Google's DeepMind AI Becomes a Superhuman Chess Player In a Few Hours (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: In a new paper published this week, DeepMind describes how a descendant of the AI program that first conquered the board game Go has taught itself to play a number of other games at a superhuman level. After eight hours of self-play, the program bested the AI that first beat the human world Go champion; and after four hours of training, it beat the current world champion chess-playing program, Stockfish. Then for a victory lap, it trained for just two hours and polished off one of the world's best shogi-playing programs named Elmo (shogi being a Japanese version of chess that's played on a bigger board). One of the key advances here is that the new AI program, named AlphaZero, wasn't specifically designed to play any of these games. In each case, it was given some basic rules (like how knights move in chess, and so on) but was programmed with no other strategies or tactics. It simply got better by playing itself over and over again at an accelerated pace -- a method of training AI known as "reinforcement learning."

46 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Strange game by IWantMoreSpamPlease · · Score: 2

    The only winning move, is not to play

    --
    So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
    1. Re:Strange game by Killall+-9+Bash · · Score: 3, Funny

      I for one welcome 99% unemployment.

      --
      "Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
    2. Re:Strange game by Shotgun · · Score: 2

      Why would you expect 99% unemployment? This AI will never be able to:

      -fix your plumbing
      -rack you servers
      -move your furniture
      -change your spark plugs
      -etc, so forth, and so on.

      --
      Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
      Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
    3. Re:Strange game by sycodon · · Score: 1

      Don't be so sure

      As soon as a humanoid robot is perfected, the only value people will have is knowing where the aim points are.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    4. Re:Strange game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This one? Probably not.

      You really think humans are so special that no other AI could ever do all those things? Better hope the AIs never hunt people for sport in order by Slashdot ID.

    5. Re:Strange game by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      So you aspire to be a mechanical actuator?

      At any rate, how are you sure that an AI won't eventually be able to teach itself mechanical control system skills that rival humans? Mice and birds with pea-sized brains are able to navigate the physical world rather effectively.

    6. Re:Strange game by SethJohnson · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Go ahead and post your ad on TaskRabbit seeking candidates to come over and fix your plumbing, rack your servers, etc. A hundred people show up at your door offering to perform these jobs for obscenely cheap rates. To identify the best candidate, you ask each what their prior work experience has been that makes them suited for the plumbing, spark plugs, and so on.

      Candiate 1: "I traded stocks on Wall Street for 20 years prior to having my job automated."

      Candiate 2: "I operated a fork lift in a warehouse for 8 years before the facility was automated."

      Candiate 3: "I drove semi trucks for 15 years before the robots came in."

      And so on.

      The thing about AI and automation is that as human workers are displaced, they shift to job types that are financially unattractive to automate-- like those categories you cite. With the flood of displaced workers in these job areas, wages are diluted. "A plumber always makes a good living" will no longer be a true statement as the plumber job market becomes oversaturated by workers displaced by automation.

    7. Re:Strange game by Traksius+Egas · · Score: 1

      Better hope the AIs never hunt people for sport in order by Slashdot ID.

      Well, hopefully they will start in reverse order. :P

    8. Re:Strange game by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      The thing about AI and automation is that as human workers are displaced, they shift to job types that are financially unattractive to automate-- like those categories you cite.

      Those jobs aren't financially unattractive to automate, they're still a way beyond our current level of tech.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    9. Re:Strange game by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      The only winning move, is not to play

      When algorithms will be clever at societal things instead of games, it will become more difficult not to "play".

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  2. Teach it Starcraft Civilization by ranton · · Score: 2

    Please have it learn how to play modern strategy games like Starcraft and Civilization so we can have computer players which don't suck without massive bonuses which change the dynamic of the game.

    --
    -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    1. Re:Teach it Starcraft Civilization by Shotgun · · Score: 2

      Please have it learn to play politics, so we can....

      --
      Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
      Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
    2. Re:Teach it Starcraft Civilization by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      They have. Facebook too.

      Those games have a hell of a lot more complexity too, so it's no wonder it's a hard problem to solve. Resource management, army counter/order management, base creation, etc...

    3. Re:Teach it Starcraft Civilization by psycho12345 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    4. Re:Teach it Starcraft Civilization by gtall · · Score: 2

      I agree. If AI machines can play these games, then the gamers will be freed for a more productive use of their time.

    5. Re:Teach it Starcraft Civilization by Mark+McGann · · Score: 1
      4X style games like Civ have gotten no love from AI developers. As others have pointed out Starcraft has been worked on by serious AI researchers.

      I suspect 4x style games will be among the hardest computer games for AI to tackle for several reasons. Just off the top of my head.
      1. * Data sets to train on are smaller because individual games take much longer
      2. * More complex rules sets
      3. * More things to manage
        • * City/planet development
        • * Unit design (some games)
        • * Combat
        • * Exploration vs Exploitation
        • * Fog of war
      4. *Multiple victory conditions

      Some of those things RTS AI's already have to deal with, but I think 4x game are more complex overall.

      I'd kill for a great Age of Wonders III AI.

    6. Re:Teach it Starcraft Civilization by Wraithlyn · · Score: 1

      I'd love to see what kind of city designs and road systems it might come up with in Cities: Skylines.

      --
      "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
  3. Super Human? by jellomizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Reinforcement Learning systems have a tenancies of creating "Superstition" artifacts, were actions that may not create a net positive or negative are used over when the net outcome is positive. It often creates less than ideal outcome, but still it works. So this could mean a really long chess game with non-strategic moves, as the most optimal path, may not be enforced correctly.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Super Human? by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >, were actions that may not create a net positive or negative are used over when the net outcome is positive.

      Which is still a net improvement over humans, who may stick with actions that are actually net negative despite proof if they initially miscategorized them as positive.

      What they should get the AI to do to minimize such artifacts is have a meta-analysis going where the positive associations are re-evaluated whenever the overall victory is judged to not be at stake in the event the action was correctly evaluated in the first place.

    2. Re:Super Human? by HumanWiki · · Score: 1

      "a really long chess game with non-strategic moves, as the most optimal path, may not be enforced correctly."

      Well, at least with humans, pushing a game very long will stress the other opponent in to making a mistake if they're not as well equipped for it as you are. That's not sub-optimal, just longer. If you can't beat them straight up in logic, then you switch to alternate tactics.

      Now, this may not apply to an AI as they don't tire like we do.. However, it's entirely possible, that if their logic systems are different enough, then you could get other programming flaws to manifest by pushing a game long and confusing it in to not understanding what you're trying to do. It may not be tired, but you could possibly exploit it like a tire human and make it run in to an unrecoverable error and lose nonetheless.

    3. Re:Super Human? by HumanWiki · · Score: 1

      "It didn't teach itself to play at all. The rules are programmed in. What's a legal move. What's a win. All programmed, not learned."

      Isn't that what humans do? We're taught what's a legal move, what's not, why they're not, what's a win and why it's win. We're programmed as well, our interface and language is different.

      As for watching to learn... You can watch to learn, but for most humans, there's an explanation as to why things are and aren't allowed, what happened, why, who scored and why, etc...

    4. Re: Super Human? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      Programmed is learned. That's why they have different *programs* for different degrees in college. I'm sure they could have it watch 1000s of chess matches to deduce it, but then you would claim it didn't "learn" the moved because someone "programmed" it. In other words, your objection can always be made, and is also always a stupid argument. You are basically saying it didn't learn because someone used a method conducive to computers to teach it rather than taking some convoluted path to the same result. It didn't know how, and then through trial and error it figured out how to. On planet Earth, in the English language, we call that process learning. Now all that is left is to see if *you* are capable of learning, or if you will go on making the same stupid objections.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  4. In other words... by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

    It simply got better by playing itself over and over again at an accelerated pace -- a method of training AI known as "reinforcement learning."

    Like it was playing Global Thermonuclear War with zero players...

    LK

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  5. And next: by forkfail · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The world's gonna be an... interesting... place once someone merges this sort of code with virus code.

    --
    Check your premises.
  6. Because we understand progress by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why would you expect 99% unemployment? This AI will never be able to: [optimism redacted]

    No, not this one. Not even the next one. The one after that? Or after that?

    Eventually, they will. The question is simply how long will that be. Right now, the ML pace continues to accelerate. Soon, they'll be stacking one skill upon another. The skill to walk. The skill to understand plumbing joints and leaks. The skill to know home construction. Etc.

    It's coming. That whole "will never be able to" business... that's not going to pan out for anyone.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  7. 1983 And I Am Dreaming Of Nuclear Warfare by alternative_right · · Score: 1

    Did everyone miss the movie reference?

  8. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  9. Re:Is it AI? by suutar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, the program playing itself is not really qualitatively different than "if I do this, and he does that, and I do the other, and he does........ then I win!"; it's just carried out to more steps than a human would (because a human can't go that far). Therefore, any approach I can conceive of to go from knowing the rules to knowing how to win is pretty much equivalent to "running some iterations". Even the ability of human chess masters to perceive the board as a pattern instead of just a bunch of individual piece positions is probably approximated by something in the program.

    Given that, I am unable to come up with a mechanism to go from "knows the rules" to "knows how to win a game" without doing something equivalent to "running iterations"...

  10. Cool. by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

    Wake me when it can decide, on its own without human directive, that it wants to play chess in the first place.

    1. Re:Cool. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      what the fuck is it with people feigning absurd levels of majestic boredom about an article on a piece of tech that blows out of the water anything in the field from 3 years ago.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:Cool. by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

      I'm not bored. I'm pointing out that intelligence requires awareness and motivation that is not programmed by an external source. What we're talking about is not intelligence. We're not going to crack that nut until we stop looking at machine learning as the same as intelligence. What we have in this article is advancement within the field of machine learning, not advancement in artificial intelligence.

    3. Re:Cool. by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      I'm pointing out that intelligence requires awareness and motivation that is not programmed by an external source

      That would disqualify your own brain. Your motivation to survive is programmed by external sources.

    4. Re:Cool. by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

      Not in the same sense. Computers do exactly what you program them to do, and only ask questions if you tell them to. People wrestle with competing motivations (my motivation to play is competing with my motivation to do work to fulfill my motivation to survive, for example), and decide from moment to moment which motivation is most compelling. We take input from all our sensors all the time, not just within the confines that a program dictates. We piece that input into a meaningful continuum within which we are free to choose how to interact - or not interact. That is a significantly higher intelligence than we see required within the game of chess or go.

  11. What was AlphaZero running on... by e_pluribus_funk · · Score: 1

    vs. what was Stockfish running on?

    1. Re:What was AlphaZero running on... by PacoSuarez · · Score: 1

      It's in the paper. AlphaZero was running on a computer with 4 TPUs, while Stockfish was running on a 64-core computer. They are not directly comparable, but Stockfish on a 64-core computer is a formidable opponent.

    2. Re:What was AlphaZero running on... by e_pluribus_funk · · Score: 1

      Stockfish running on a 2-core computer is a formidable opponent.

  12. Re: Is it AI? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

    So like a human, you tell the person the rules, they give them zero thought, and play zero games, but are an expert? That wouldn't be SO. That would be Magical Intelligence.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  13. Can it run on a desktop? by mark-t · · Score: 1

    Is it open source?

  14. Re:Impressive, but ... by hazardPPP · · Score: 1

    I don't understand why people extrapolate so much from a computer being able to beat humans at chess. Or any similar game. Sure, it's a great feat of programming, but it doesn't mean "strong AI" is coming any time soon. These are just...games. Meaning, things humans made up to fill up their spare time. Some may be very complex, but ultimately they are very precise constructs of the human mind with very well-defined, restrictive rules. It is not strange that ultimately, one precise construct of the human mind (an AI program) can "figure out" another (a game of chess). Finally, there are games we humans play because they are challenging for us, but which are fundamentally easy for computers (for example, those which require doing calculations or figuring out probabilities on the fly). A true strong AI would beat us at the stuff we do easily, without even thinking about it.

  15. But can it play Mario? by kiminator · · Score: 1

    I'd love to see if this AI can learn to play a more complicated game like Super Mario World given only: 1) The pixels displayed as input. 2) Fail conditions (when a life is lost). 3) Basic map navigation rules (bonus if these can be eliminated and the game can be judged only on whether or not it gets a game over or completes the final level). 4) Valid controller inputs. I do wonder how this AI would translate from the turn-based world of Chess and Go to realtime.

    1. Re:But can it play Mario? by kiminator · · Score: 1

      I do think this is most interesting if we don't allow the AI to adjust the game clock at all: if there's too large a delay between input and output, it will simply fail.

      There have been AI's designed explicitly to play Super Mario World (see here, for instance). Where this becomes cool is with an AI that doesn't get an abstract representation of the level, but has to interpret the pixels that are displayed. That's a far more complicated problem, as the information displayed on even a simple game like Super Mario World is orders of magnitude richer than the information used to specify the state of a game of chess or go.

      As for cars, I may be off, but I believe that they don't attempt to do this sort of "from scratch" learning, but rather break the problem up into pieces: train the neural net to detect things like cars or people or lines on the road, and then determine whether or not it expects those things to move and how. I imagine it's particularly difficult to train the neural net to deal with rare obstacles (such as bouncing debris from a wreck or a falling tree).

  16. Re:Is it AI? by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

    Because humans don't do that. Why would we expect AI to do it? At least you don't have to worry: you're so illogical, no program could ever replace you. Obsolete, yes. Replace, no.

  17. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  18. Micro transactions by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    Better yet, make it play one of the newer games that is all about micro transactions and pay to play.

    Pretty sure the AI will come to the determination that they are retarded and refuse to play anymore. Either that or IBM or whoever will have their profit margins cut by a massive credit card bill...

    Then again release enough AI's onto the market grinding an infinite number of games for credits, buying up all the good stuff, making the game, and the micro transactions useless might actually have a positive impact by influencing game makers to stop doing that anymore.

  19. Re:Is it AI? by suutar · · Score: 1

    Ah, I see what you mean. No, an exhaustive search algorithm isn't what I'd call "intelligent". But an exhaustive search for chess would take a lot longer than a few hours, and a process that develops some sense of "this move will be bad" without having to try it every single time does seem, while not necessarily "intelligent", to be at least one step up from brute force, because it is making decisions based on, well, not unknown values of variables (not much in chess is invisible) but on situations not quite the same as what's been seen before.

  20. Not Just A Bigger Board by Artagel · · Score: 1

    I don't think the principal difference between shogi and chess is board size. In Shogi, you can place the pieces you capture onto the board as your own pieces. Having paratroopers is a lot different.