prologue   AlphaGo, the end of an era

  • end of era: human go supremacy

  • try to watch alphago movie

  • 2006 start of computer go revolution

  • go ranking system

  • 2015, top Go programs Zen, Crazystone, about 8dan

    • 2014 Crazystone + 4 stones defeats Norimota Yoda by 2.5 points

    • weaker than top amateur

    • weaker than any pro (around 1200 go pros)

  • boom

  • AG-LS pre-game predictions

    • AG-FH match: many AG moves sub-optimal, throwing away points

    • top pro should easily beat this version of AG

    • so LS will win ?

  • but some sub-optimal moves were not errors

    • AG picks move that maximizes est. win-prob, not est. win-score,

  • and … between matches

    • AG algorithm changed

    • AG NNs trained non-stop (and improved)

  • 2016 Mar AG v Sedol 4-1

  • how does AlphaGo work ?

  • in this course, we explore basic algorithms for solving puzzles and games

  • general algorithmic principles:   search, knowledge, simulations

  • by the end of the course you will learn most of the ideas behind AlphaGo

  • missing pieces (image recognition via deep convolution neural nets) in CMPUT 496

  • DCNN (not covered in this course)