Supercomputer Huygens beats Go professional: no one is safe

You know how Go nerds are always going on about how magical they are since supercomputer AI hasn't yet cracked the ancient board game, and rarely beats even an average Go player? No? Maybe those are just our nerdy friends. Well, those folks can wipe the smug grins off their faces as they're faced with the sobering reality of defeat: Dutch supercomputer "Huygens" has defeated a human Go professional in an official match at the 24th Annual Congress of the game Go in Portland, Oregon. The newly-minted supercomputer was aided by the recently-developed Monte-Carlo Tree Search algorithm, a whopping 60 teraflops of processing power and a considerable 9 stone handicap. Poor Kim MyungWan -- who managed to beat the computer in three "blitz" games leading up to the actual match, and probably won't be hanging up his Go hat just yet -- didn't stand a chance.

[Via Tech Digest]

[Uchiha Sasuke @ Aug 15th 2008 12:42AM]

Where did everybody Go?

[LordFarkward @ Aug 15th 2008 2:21AM]

Flashpoint, your post doesn't answer Uchiha's question, and your "joke" isn't even funny.

Fail. Just like pretty much all of your other posts.

[Techie @ Aug 15th 2008 2:31AM]

Dude... don't make fun of Go players. The game is extremely difficult to master and beat.

[Rob @ Aug 15th 2008 4:30AM]

Sorry, but although the full Huygens system is indeed 60TF (100 POWER6 P575 nodes at 4.7GHz), only 15TF was used for the Go game (25 nodes).

[johnsson @ Aug 15th 2008 12:43AM]

but will Huygens beat the yellowness out of my teeth?

[Kris @ Aug 15th 2008 10:13AM]

No but your sister might

[Dean @ Aug 15th 2008 12:45AM]

He gave the computer a pretty big handicap based on those first three games, it wasn't really a fair and even game.

[Carl Lumma @ Aug 15th 2008 2:06AM]

9 stones is a HUGE handicap for the computer. It shows you how far we have to go with computer go, that people are getting excited over this (and despite 60 TFLOPS).

-Carl

[LarryLarryLarry @ Aug 15th 2008 7:51PM]

"When you can take these nine stones from my hand, Grasshoppercomputer, it will be time for you to leave."

[Ian @ Aug 15th 2008 12:45AM]

umm wait what game is this?

[Aguiluz @ Aug 15th 2008 1:30AM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(board_game)

[Aguiluz @ Aug 15th 2008 1:31AM]

(Oh, Commenting system cut out the close parenthesis. Oops!)

Here's it:
http://ln2.us/8016b2

[kyle allen @ Aug 15th 2008 12:48AM]

i live in portland oregon =)

[CT A @ Aug 15th 2008 1:33AM]

You shall be ranked low.. or ranked high.
It's Portland, Oregon so who knows.

"You have Died Of Dysentery."

[kyle allen @ Aug 15th 2008 3:02AM]

the hunting was the best feature of that game. they tried to educate me, but i chose not to learn.

[neofolklore @ Aug 15th 2008 7:37AM]

"Kyle Allen was bit by a snake"

[who? @ Aug 15th 2008 12:49AM]

This just in: The iPhone beat Supercomputer Huygens in a game of Go, officially declared best mobile phone ever.

or not...

[XpLioiT @ Aug 15th 2008 2:03AM]

fark, u troll threads to try and start iphone bashing comments. wow...

[Harry Wagstaff @ Aug 15th 2008 5:01AM]

This just in: who? beaten by iPhone. Beaten into a bloody pulp.

[dragon @ Aug 15th 2008 12:55AM]

Come on, the human professional let the computer put 9 stones on the board first (so called 9 stones handicap). That's far from a fair game to the human professional player. It's just like the human professional had to tie one of his arms and one of his legs to play basketball with the supercomputer player.

[Dan Halen @ Aug 15th 2008 12:56AM]

60 TERAFLOPS?! TO PLAY A BOARD GAME?!

Jesus, these algorithms need some cleaning up.

[amarquis @ Aug 15th 2008 11:01AM]

"Jesus, these algorithms need some cleaning up."

The go AI community has been trying to do this better for a great number of years, but there are some very tough challenges involved with teaching computers to play go well.

Also, I'd like to say that a nine-stone handicap is a huge, huge advantage. Not only is it nine free moves at the start of the game for the computer, but it makes the computer's job much easier. By having nine stones on the board, the computer effectively gets to sidestep its worst phase of the game, the opening, and move right into something it is much better at, tactical fighting.

[whowhatme @ Aug 15th 2008 12:58AM]

bet it'd still lose to a cheeky japanese kid possessed by a thousand-year old spirit though.

[QUOW @ Aug 15th 2008 1:36AM]

But Hikaru! I need to play~

[Mustaine @ Aug 15th 2008 12:16PM]

'Hikaru no Go' for those not in the know...awesome anime.

[Ito @ Aug 16th 2008 1:09AM]

Unfortunately, it would still be insanely boring to watch

[vannyx @ Aug 17th 2008 10:53AM]

Actually I found Hikaru no GO fun to watch and had me learn something about a game i knew nothing about.

[sr @ Aug 15th 2008 1:02AM]

Still, I mean one human vs. 60 teraflops and the computer got a handicap?

[LiNTEK @ Aug 15th 2008 1:19AM]

60 Teraflops?????

Cmon, let's "GO" HOME!

LOL!

[Aguiluz @ Aug 15th 2008 1:27AM]

And it takes a 1 GHz laptop to beat me in a game of Checkers.

[FoxDie @ Aug 15th 2008 1:49AM]

in soviet russia the computer plays you in checkers

[Stephen @ Aug 15th 2008 1:40AM]

Oh, yeah, let's see you beat a hyoo-man on an eeepc... huh, what now!

ps. teraflop = blackzilla

[Zinger314 @ Aug 15th 2008 1:42AM]

But can it play Chess?

[kyle allen @ Aug 15th 2008 3:03AM]

lol best comment ever!

[GaretJax @ Aug 15th 2008 1:48AM]

This article is surprisingly inaccurate, and I'm pretty surprised. The supercomputer that won was given a 9-stone handicap - the largest handicap that is commonly given. So it is not like the computer wiped the floor with the professional at all. In fact it was an extremely close game. Us go nerds will continue to know that we are still better than the computers. For those interested in learning about go, check out www.gokgs.com for a go server and www.playgo.to/interactive/ to learn how to play. The link to the game file is here: http://files.gokgs.com/games/2008/8/7/MyungWan-MoGoTiTan-4.sgf Also, I'm not sure where the name Hyugens came from - the program's name is MoGo. Maybe Hyugens is the computer it ran on.

[Rust @ Aug 15th 2008 10:29AM]

The article is certainly a bit sensationalist considering the handicap, but given rates of computing power increase, it's certainly a noteworthy event. Kim gave an estimation of the computer's skill afterwards - he pegged it at 2-3 dan.

[Jason @ Aug 15th 2008 6:21PM]

Never mind the fact that the player beat the computer multiple times in tests before the actual 'match'. That seems to speak more to the computer winning as a random fluke than anything remarkable.

[fred @ Aug 15th 2008 1:56AM]

When it can beat a human at Pente or Othello, then get back to us.

[Byungmin @ Aug 15th 2008 2:01AM]

I didn't believe it, and I'm glad I read the actual page. The computer won with a 9-stone handicap. Which is probably the equivalent of playing a person in chess with only half of your starting pieces. PLEASE PLEASE edit the article.

[pINGVA @ Aug 15th 2008 2:08AM]

It's important to note that the game wasn't even -- it was a maximum (9 stones) handicap game. Still, it's a great advancement of computer Go.

The game record can be found here: http://www.usgo.org/congress/2008/myungwan-mogo.sgf

[霽月瀛台 @ Aug 15th 2008 2:20AM]

Does Engadget nerdy editor know what is GO?
9-stone is not GO.
Come on Engadget, don't be so innocent. You gotta understand the stuff before you comment.
and Please bring yourself a pair of glasses and turn on the light when you read.
Here is the original research report.

http://www.sara.nl/news/press/20080813/Go_computer_victory_eng.html

Amsterdam/Portland, August 13, 2008 - At the 24th Annual Congress of the game Go, held in Portland, Oregon from August 2-10, the brand-new Dutch supercomputer Huygens defeated a human Go professional in an official match with a 9-stones handicap. It is the first victory of a computer playing Go against a human being. The application 'MoGo Titan', developed by INRIA France and Maastricht University, runs on the national supercomputer which is located at SARA Computing an Networking Services in Amsterdam.

[The Beef Machine (lala lala la) @ Aug 15th 2008 2:56AM]

I'll be impressed with the machine when it moves over to Engadget and actually helps monitor the articles and comment boards... that'd be an impressive computer!

[rayw @ Aug 15th 2008 3:14AM]

The computer was an IBM Power 575 Hydro-Cluster system peaking at 60 trillion calculations per second (Teraflop/s), posessing 3328 Power6 processor cores at 4.7 GHz, a total memory capacity of more than 15 TB, and almost 1000 TB disk capacity. I find it somehow oddly comforting for the human race yet, that it managed to only narrowly win given that huge 9-stone handicap...

[The Beef Machine (lala lala la) @ Aug 15th 2008 3:40AM]

... yes, and load a single Youtube video, all at the SAME TIME!

[neofolklore @ Aug 15th 2008 7:39AM]

KIMI GA IIIIMA....

*sigh* i used to love the Hikaru no Go theme song

[iHoppipolla @ Aug 15th 2008 8:45AM]

Wasn't this the game played in the commons area in the movie, "A Beautiful Mind"?

[EB @ Aug 15th 2008 9:34AM]

Who named the computer anyway? What a stupid name ...

[arne @ Aug 15th 2008 9:42AM]

Yeah, the posting does leave much the of truth out, but I'm loving the reactions in the comments. Does hoping for the day the best Go master is second banana to a machine make me a bad person?

[philip @ Aug 15th 2008 9:57AM]

How many Terminator and Sarah Connor Chronicles references will I have to post on the interwebs before IBM realizes what it's doing?? Stop the approaching robot apocalypse!

[igb @ Aug 15th 2008 10:34AM]

Humans can beat computers any time, only with a baseball bat.