South Korean professional Go player Lee Se-Dol after the match against Google's artificial ... [+]
In May 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer defeated the reigning world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, in an official match under tournament conditions. Fast forward to 2011, IBM extended development in machine learning, natural language processing, and information retrieval to build Watson, a system capable of defeating two highly decorated Jeopardy champions: Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.
The progress of gaming innovation in the field of artificial intelligence was swift, but it wasn’t until the introduction of Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo in 2016 that things started to change dramatically. The AlphaGo supercomputer tackled the notion that Go, an ancient Chinese board game invented thousands of years ago, was unsolvable due to a near limitless combination of moves that a player can execute. Unlike chess, which can be “brute-forced” by forecasting all possible outcomes of a single movement with sufficient computing power, Go can’t be solved the same way.
Because of high complexity and computational limits, many experts believed that Go was an unsolvable game in this lifetime. However, the stunning defeat of Lee Se-Dol at the hands of AlphaGo in 2016 added yet another case study to demonstrate the futility of competition between humankind and machine. Claps and congratulations soon followed for Google’s team of dedicated engineers, but the experience proved to be a sobering one for Lee Se-Dol. In November 2019, Lee Se-Dol formally announced his retirement, citing that “AI is an entity that cannot be defeated”.
Shifting Perspectives
Se-Dol’s final bow in professional Go signals a more significant, existential concern. If a world champion, floating at the peak of personal achievement, starts to view human accomplishment and machine accomplishment as one and the same, it creates an environment for frustration, disappointment, and perceived loss of purpose. Se-Dol sits at the edge of this realization, but all of us are not far behind.
If a collection of AI technologies write the next great American novel or the Da Vinci remote surgical system is upgraded to operate with error-proof AI technology, will creative writers and doctors feel the same pang of diminishing self-worth?
The impossibility of paralleling artificial intelligence is dawning on us in small doses, but our identities are deeply rooted in what we do. Therefore, in the world we live in, where work is the centerpiece of the “hub-and-spoke” model of purpose, we need to reassess the beliefs, values, attributes, and skills that make us who we are. Otherwise, we fall victim to hard questions about meaning when the next AI wave arrives.
The alternative model is to draw a divide between human and machine achievement. Garry Kasparov (and millions of chess players worldwide) haven’t abandoned the game because of Deep Blue’s success. The tradition of Go won’t suffer because AlphaGo proved it could beat the best players on the planet with ease. The art and science of gameplay (and human achievement) can advance in tandem, without directly conflicting with our sense of individuality. Accepting our limitations relative to technology isn’t a defeat, but a proud moment of humankind’s growth & progression.
As Se-dol plans his next move, hard questions remain for the rest of us.
- How will individuals cope with the cheapening and democratization of their skill set as a result of AI?
- Will innovation help spark an honest discussion about our value and contribution to the world at large?
With time, answers will soon follow.
