How AlphaZero has rewritten the rules of game play on its own
David Silver says the computer program that taught itself to be a chess grandmaster exhibits “the essence of creativity”.
In one famous game against possibly the best Go player ever, AlphaGo made a brilliant move that human observers initially thought was a mistake. Was it being creative in that moment?
“Move 37,” as it became known, surprised everyone, including the Go community and us, its makers. It was something outside of the expected way of playing Go that humans had figured out over thousands of years. To me this is an example of something being creative.
You’ve had AlphaZero play against the top conventional chess engine, Stockfish. What have you learned?
Stockfish has this very sophisticated search engine, but at the heart of it is this module that says, “According to humans, this is a good position or a bad position.” So humans are really deeply in the loop there. It’s hard for it to break away and understand a position that’s fundamentally different.
AlphaZero learns to understand positions for itself. There was one beautiful game we were just looking at where it actually gives up four pawns in a row, and it even tries to give up a fifth pawn. Stockfish thinks it’s winning fantastically, but AlphaZero is really happy. It’s found a way to understand the position which is unthinkable according to the norms of chess. It understands it’s better to have the position than the four pawns.
See the full story here:https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612923/how-alphazero-has-rewritten-the-rules-of-gameplay-on-its-own/