Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Professional Go player defeated by computer

Some time ago I wrote about checkers being completly solved. And i was happy to say that Go is still something everyone can win against a computer opponent. About 2 weeks ago I was proven wrong :-(
A supercomputer matched a professional Go player. Kim MyungWan, an 8 dan pro (9 is the maximum) was defeated by the program MoGo running on an IBM Power 575 Hydro-Cluster system. This supercomputer (located at Amsterdam, Netherlands) has a peak speed of 60 Teraflop per second. So it is save to say that the average player will not face such a opponent every other day but we all know how fast the computational speed is increasing.
Go still is one of the hardest games for a computer and it seems like only speed and mass (storage that is) enables such a system to beat a human player. It is still a long way to go for all working on artificial intelligence (AI) to make a computer "think".
On the other hand the human brain is nothing else.....and even if we are slow at math and things like that the human brain is working incredible fast because there is so much going on at the same time. And we a freaking good at guessing ;-)
Many of us would struggle to solve a quadratic equation. Still each and everyone is able to catch a ball or at least to teach it by predicting its flight curve. That is just the same and you even do it without pen and paper or even a calculator. Never correct but always close enough to survive. So keep making mistakes but enjoy your games and life.....