Tuesday March 31, 2020
Carol Geary reports that in the latest episode – Episode 5 – of Devs, a drama miniseries available on Hulu, one of the main characters flashes back to her childhood playing Go with her father. The series stars Sonoya Mizuno as Lily, the character in the flashback, and Nick Offerman as her employer at a tech company called Amaya with a mysterious quantum computing division called Devs.
Thursday February 20, 2020
This month, Smithsonian Magazine published an article called Great Board Games of the Ancient World; naturally Go is included, though towards the end of the article, along with Mancala, Senet, the Royal Game of Ur, Mehen, Backgammon, the Game of the Goose, and others. Thanks to Steve Zilber for spotting this article.
Monday February 17, 2020
Go was part of the February 8-9 grand re-opening of the Seattle Asian Art Museum, following a $56 million renovation of the 1933 art-deco building. On prominent display was a large Chinese decorative screen (artist uncertain) featuring the four classical arts required of aristocratic gentlemen: playing the guqin (a stringed zither-like instrument), calligraphy, painting, and playing go (right). Thanks to Steve Jones, South Sound Go Club, Tacoma WA.
Saturday January 4, 2020
“In Lecture 24 of her course Brain Myths Exploded (available at The Great Courses.com) entitled Does Technology Make You Stupid? Indre Viskontas uses Go to support her thesis that the answer to the title question is no,” writes Joel Sanet. “After spending about a minute and a half (at minute 23) describing Go in which she calls it ‘the most complex game ever devised by our species’ and ‘the pinnacle of human intelligence,'” she points out AlphaGo’s defeat of Lee Sedol. However, in defense of her position she also mentions Fan Hui’s statement that playing against AlphaGo has made him a better Go player.”
Tuesday October 15, 2019
How AI could change science
“This interesting article about AI and its applications from the University of Chicago uses AlphaGo as an example,” writes Alicia Seifrid. “For example, when someone programmed the rules for the game of Go into an AI, it invented strategies never seen in thousands of years of humans playing the game,” said Brian Nord, an associate scientist in the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and UChicago-affiliated Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. “Maybe sometimes it will have more interesting ideas than we have.”
9 Dan Girl
“Bold and strong-willed Yu Ruiwen makes it her lifelong challenge to prove her worth of playing Go” in the 9 Dan Girl manga by Yoshinori Kisaragi, Ri Yin Quing Kong and Bai Ri. “The story of a girl building an outstanding winning history in a game dominated by men,” says Manga Rock. “None of the action of Hikaru and only 15 chapters up so far,” David Bogie. “Translation is a bit crude.” Also available here.
A Wise Man’s Fear
“In the second book of “The Kingkiller Chronicles,” by Patrick Rothfuss, I think called “A Wise Man’s Fear,” they play a game with stones,” writes Eli Strongheart. “They aim to play a beautiful game. I’m fairly certain its Go.”
Sunday October 6, 2019
In a September 7th article titled “Battle algorithm,” The Economist writes of a “paradox” that may be familiar to readers who analyze their games using Leela Zero and other AIs. “AI might at once penetrate and thicken the fog of war, allowing it to be waged with a speed and complexity that renders it essentially opaque to humans.” The article notes that in AlphaGo’s March 2016 victory over Lee Sedol, the AI “played several highly creative moves that confounded experts,” and this led a workshop at the Chinese Academy of Military Science to conclude that, in the words of one source, “an AI could create tactics and stratagems superior to those of a human player in a game that can be compared to a war-game.”
While the article in The Economist focuses on conventional warfare, the strengths and weaknesses of go-playing AIs also appear in recent publications on nuclear warfare.
In 2017, the American think tank RAND Corporation held a series of workshops on AI and nuclear war, which noted that AlphaGo’s victory “astonished even AI and strategy experts.” “[T]he decisionmaking in Go is far simpler to address than in nuclear war…. but by the year 2040, it does not seem unreasonable to expect that an AI system might be able to play aspects or stages of military wargames or exercises at superhuman levels.” It is “likely that humans making command decisions will treat the AI system’s suggestions as on par with or better than those of human advisers. This potentially unjustified trust presents new risks that must be considered.”
This year, an August 16 commentary by two American researchers also cites AlphaGo. The commentary notes that AlphaGo Zero “learned through an iterative process”; “in nuclear conflict there is no iterative learning process.” “The laws of war require a series of judgments…. Software that cannot explain why a target was chosen probably cannot abide by those laws. Even if it can, humans might mistrust a decision aid that could outwardly resemble a Magic 8-Ball.” Nonetheless, the commentary argues for having AI take more control over US nuclear weapons.
Thanks to Fred Baldwin for once again spotting go, this time in “Battle algorithm.”
-edited by Joe Cua
Tuesday September 10, 2019
A couple of AGA members have recently told us about references to games with stones in science fiction novels. Could these folks be playing Go?
Peter Freedman points out that in the science fiction trilogy Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne by Brian Staveley, the warriors play “a game of stones” with black and white stones. Unfortunately, we have no more information about this.
Meanwhile, Mike Goerss points out that in Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee, another science fiction trilogy, the characters play a game called “pattern stones” that seems like it could possibly be Go. Few details about this game are provided, but there is a reference to a three-stone handicap, and also the line, “Brezan placed a black stone – naturally he was the weaker player.” (These references appear on pages 152-154 of Raven Stratagem, the second book in the series.)
If you find more clues about what game these characters are playing, or if you spot references to Go in other popular literature, please let us know by dropping us a line at journal@usgo.org.
Wednesday August 14, 2019
“During Go Congress, I visited the Chazen Museum of Art at UW and found this Japanese print,” writes Li Ping. “It is a Samurai standing on top of a Go set.”
The woodcut is by Katsukawa Shunshô, who was known for “his widely influential nise-e (“likeness painting”) or nigao (“likenesses”), which were stylized but otherwise accurate facial likenesses of actors. These introduced a greater measure of realism and individuation into ukiyo-e actor portraits.” (Source.)
-edited by Nate Eagle
Saturday August 10, 2019
Former AGA President Allan Abramson spotted games of go in two scenes currently on display in the East wing of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Muromachi period, early 1500s
pair of six-panel screens; ink, color, and gold on paper
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Edward L. Whittemore Fund
“Fine horses were treasured assets for military commanders, who built elaborate stables to house them. A Portuguese priest who visited Japan during the Edo period noted that such stables were spotlessly clean, elaborate structures where members of the elite could entertain, as shown here. Guests sit on tatami mats and play the board games go or shogi (similar to chess) while falconers watch over their hawks and grooms attend to the spirited horses. Monkeys, thought to draw illness away from horses, appear in the panels to the right of the go or shogi players.”
The Cleveland Museum of Art has a high-res version of the entire scene.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi
1798 – 1861
Edo period, 1843
triptych, woodblock print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
The Joan Elizabeth Tanney Bequest
The Earth or Dirt Spider
“Families that rebelled against the emperor were disparaged as ‘dirt spiders’ (tsuchigumo) in some ancient Japanese texts. In the popular imagination, the term was taken literally to refer to a giant, ground-dwelling arachnid. In Kuniyoshi’s print, the Earth Spider tries to ensnare in its web a famous but ailing warrior, Minamoto Raiko (948 – 1021), whose four bodyguards sip sake and play board games. The artist used the story to satirize the harshness of the government in his own day. When the print was issued in 1843, viewers understood that the sick Raiko was a stand-in for the unpopular current shogun, and the horde of demons symbolized the down-trodden townspeople.
“In Yoshitsuya’s version of the story, Raiko’s bodyguards or generals lower themselves in baskets into the cave of the Earth Spider and its serpent companion. The monster glares at the intruders with its green, bulging eyes, while countless small spiders crawl over its body. Despite the odds against them, the bodyguards ultimately slay the Earth Spider. Their victory inspired a centuries-old Noh play, Tsuchigumo, that was adapted for Kabuki theater.”
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has a high-quality version of the triptych here.
-edited by Nate Eagle
Wednesday August 7, 2019
“Yanko Design considers itself an online magazine of modern and industrial product design,” writes AGA member Morgan Faas. On Yanko Design’s website he found a go board design that, in his words, “upgrades the go board into the modern era of technology.”
Indeed, this post by James Hoare asks, “Don’t you think that it’s about time that one of the oldest known board games is due a refresh?” The post goes on to describe a go board with embedded multi-color lights. It seems like each player has one stone that they tap on a point on the board to indicate where they wish to play. Then the point lights up in color. The article doesn’t give some details that might be of interest to go players, such as how captures work, or scoring for that matter. However, this could be an interesting concept for those who might think the game of go needs a technological update.
This 21st century go board is designed by Joonho Sung. It appears to be an idea and not an actual product at this point.
-edited by Roger Schrag