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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

I think this is a strange reason to retire and as the article points out it might also simply be due to the legal conflict he is currently in with the KBA.

Chess engines have been defeating humans for 20+ years (and are overwhelmingly stronger for a long time), but that hasn't diminished the interest in competitive chess, because the human element of competition and struggle and deep fundamental appreciation for the game is what makes it worthwhile pursuing.

AlphaGo can play go but it cannot appreciate the beauty of the game (at least as of yet, and I don't think it would make the game worse if it could), and so I don't think there's a meaningful conflict between humans and machines.

If someone invented some sort of superhuman math proving engine tomorrow it would not diminish the beauty of maths and I don't think anyone would quit the field. Just like in chess it ought to motivate people to understand their field better.

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> AlphaGo can play go but it cannot appreciate the beauty of the game

On the contrary, appreciating the game is the core of what AlphaGo does. In order to search the tree of moves it learns how to play (expand search) and how to evaluate (cut off branches of search). I believe it might appreciate the game on a deeper level than humans, in its own unique way. Of course it can't appreciate the social aspect of the game and all that comes with it.

That’s being way too anthropomorphic. You could just as well say it aims to minimise the pain of Go, but neither interpretation is warranted.

AlphaGo doesn't appreciate the game at all. It is just trying to survive in a hostile environment. You might as well say that your gut bacteria appreciate the food at your favorite restaurant better than you do.

Put another way, Chess is literally a matter of life and death for AlphaGo, because chess is all it knows. It has no exterior context for which chess is a metaphor.

And it doesn't even know the name of the game it is playing.

> AlphaGo doesn't appreciate the game at all.

It's 'appreciating' the value of various states and moves, in light of a vast trove of experience.

AlphaGo doesn't know chess at all....

What does it mean for humans to appreciate the beauty of the game anyway? It's when humans find certain moves and games pleasurable?

> Chess engines have been defeating humans for 20+ years (and are overwhelmingly stronger for a long time), but that hasn't diminished the interest in competitive chess

Is that true? I feel like chess was a bigger deal in the past. Among my peers, poker and computer games seem a lot more popular.

I've been an active chess player myself for a long time and for the last 8-10 years not just with the advance of engines but also online streaming there has been a lot of renewed interest. Saint Louis has become a big chess hub in the US, China has become a major player, Anand has rekindled interest in India, Carlsen in Europe and I would say today it is more popular than it has been in a long time, in particular in Asia.

As to the direct influence of engines the other innovations aside, it has definitely forced players at the very top to re-evaluate the chess metagame, find weaknesses in traditional openings and shook up strategies. For the strongest players engine evaluation has become a useful tool providing new insights. When people watch chess tournaments these days on the internet most websites will provide parallel engine suggestions and commentators use engines to take hints for their commentary.

In my opinion, engines have made the game more competitive at the pro-level and more accessible for casual viewers.

Well, I was never a grandmaster, but my amateur interest in Chess was killed completely after I realized it was impossible to beat computers. Then I switched to Go... and now I don't have a game to play anymore.

This seems weird, I don't know you would want to link your enjoyment with a game to it's unsolvability.

Like don't you enjoy a game to enjoy a game? You can't beat Carlsen either, but you enjoyed the game at your level. Now computers are Carlsen +1, but how you enjoy the game shouldn't be affected. Especially since deep blue won in '97 and the game is still very alive and well, it hasn't been killed by computers but enhanced. Coupled with the multitude of good chess sites and resources out there, it's a better time than ever to enjoy the game.

effort has to be matched with reward, and chess takes a lot of effort to get good at beyond a certain level. It's actually a big issue with many things, the "middle" of artists, people who do sports, music, and more is hollowing out versus consumers and pros.

I'll (probably) never beat Carlsten, but he _can_ be beaten. For some reason that seems to make a difference.

The global population increased, and more people took up Chess, but they're further distributed, so locally it seems like it has cooled when globally it's more popular than ever.

By AlphaGo/AlphaZero finding more effective/balanced moves than humans it's redefining beauty whether it appreciates it or not.

A simple script could win at FPS games every single time but it also hasn't diminished the value of the game as long as none of your competitors are using it.

This is very true, I never thought of it. Maybe the difference is that we always knew that AIs would easily win in FPS games. Whereas Go, Chess or Shougi were considered as a proof of human intelligence, for a very long time. Discovering, after all these years, our history, that a machine can now beat us at these games may be the major difference.

Maybe for these games to keep popularity, we just need to update our perception of it. The same way we do with FPS games. Yes, we know a bot would do better - but that's not what matters.

Another thing, as said in other comments, is that we can learn from bots. New strategies, new patterns. AFAIK, this is not happening in FPS eSports scene.

"I think this is a strange reason to retire"

There's nothing strange about becoming demotivated to study and compete at something extremely taxing both emotionally and mentally when a machine can beat you after an illustrious career.

so the future of humans is beauty :)

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