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China AI Censorship Google Games Technology

China Censored Google's AlphaGo Match Against World's Best Go Player (theguardian.com) 93

DeepMind's board game-playing AI, AlphaGo, may well have won its first game against the Go world number one, Ke Jie, from China -- but most Chinese viewers could not watch the match live. From a report: The Chinese government had issued a censorship notice to broadcasters and online publishers, warning them against livestreaming Tuesday's game, according to China Digital Times, a site that regularly posts such notices in the name of transparency. "Regarding the go match between Ke Jie and AlphaGo, no website, without exception, may carry a livestream," the notice read. "If one has been announced in advance, please immediately withdraw it." The ban did not just cover video footage: outlets were banned from covering the match live in any way, including text commentary, social media, or push notifications. It appears the government was concerned that 19-year-old Ke, who lost the first of three scheduled games by a razor-thin half-point margin, might have suffered a more damaging defeat that would hurt the national pride of a state which holds Go close to its heart.
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China Censored Google's AlphaGo Match Against World's Best Go Player

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  • by kuzb ( 724081 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @10:26AM (#54477347)
    Sorry. you guys just made that way too easy!
    • by cm5oom ( 603394 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @10:58AM (#54477569)

      Go is the Japanese name of the game, the Chinese name is weiqi. So you should say China needs to weiqi.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      They need to go grow up. It indeed just keeps on giving.

      • by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @11:10AM (#54477633) Journal

        Indeed. China is one of the oldest contiguous civilizations on the planet, and yet it acts like some sort of second-rate banana republic that just gained independence a few years ago. Does it really matter if a computer can beat a strategy game champion? We all know it's coming, that eventually computers are going to be able to beat the masters of any game.

        • by arth1 ( 260657 )

          Indeed. China is one of the oldest contiguous civilizations on the planet, and yet it acts like some sort of second-rate banana republic that just gained independence a few years ago. Does it really matter if a computer can beat a strategy game champion?

          Could it be that it's one of the oldest civilizations because they value national pride over individual pride? I don't know, but it might be a factor.

          • (to paraphrase the online gaming chat's reaction to that kind of blocking)

            Chill, bro, it's just a game, dude!

          • by mark-t ( 151149 )
            But if one are basing so much of their national pride on who plays a *GAME* better than anyone else, then this is what is unfortunate, because China ought to have plenty of things to be proud of, and the notion that they would find a computer beating their best Go player somehow devaluing to them as a nation speaks tons about a misplaced sense of priorities that can't possibly do their population any good.
            • by arth1 ( 260657 )

              But if one are basing so much of their national pride on who plays a *GAME* better than anyone else, then this is what is unfortunate, because China ought to have plenty of things to be proud of, and the notion that they would find a computer beating their best Go player somehow devaluing to them as a nation speaks tons about a misplaced sense of priorities that can't possibly do their population any good.

              It's probably no more pride than Brazil or England have for football, or Americans have over baseball. I.e. considerable.

              • by mark-t ( 151149 )

                Of course, and the country that happens to win the most medals or the most gold medals in a given Olympic year often gets bragging rights for a few days following the Olympics too... but such bragging is meant only in the spirit of sportsmanship, not to make those that didn't win feel like they have any less worth than they did before the competition.

                And similarly, this match was not to prove that the Chinese Go player couldn't win, but to prove that it is possible to design a program that could always w

          • by MiniMike ( 234881 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @01:00PM (#54478641)

            Actually archeologists and historians attribute the longevity of the Chinese culture to their early building skills, especially bridges and fences. While mostly known for great walls and fantastic bridges, the early culture especially relished their fence building technology. This started, they theorize, about 6000 years ago when an unknown builder in what would become central China one day went out to a field on his farm, and with primitive tools created the same fence pieces we still use today. Proudly pounding the initial piece into the ground, he stood back and declared: "First post!"

          • China has swung back and forth between isolationism and openness. Isolationism has repeatedly been an unmitigated disaster for their civilization. The Haijin [wikipedia.org] policies of the Ming Dynasty meant Europeans were able to colonize the world without competition. The "Closed Door" policy of the Qings in the 19th century meant they missed the industrial revolution. The "self sufficiency" polices of Mao from 1949-1976 made China into one of the world's poorest countries.

            Walls, Isolationism, protectionism, and cen

        • by es330td ( 964170 )
          Pretty sure you mean continuous civilizations. Not too sure how a civilization can be contiguous.

          That having been said, China's problem is that it exists as we know it only because Zhou Zhang unified the country by force. Any country formed that way must be held down by its rulers until the population has enough and throws the rulers out. I don't see a change in our lifetimes to how China acts.

        • It does seem a little petty on the part of the Chinese government to worry about censoring this type of stuff. Why not let this type of information be distributed without comment and save the real censoring efforts for more important things like making sure their citizens don't hear about the large mushroom cloud seen rising above Pyongyang.

        • Does it really matter if a computer can beat a strategy game champion? We all know it's coming, that eventually computers are going to be able to beat the masters of any game.

          what about the real reasons?
          1. go is a Chinese game
          2. the world champion is Chinese
          and 3. maybe the main reason: AlphaGo is made by Google, which domains (*.google.*) are all blocked in China...

        • Regimes like China have to maintain a facade that they are the best and unparalleled, or else the whole power structure falls apart. This is actually the whole point of censorship, and why it is integral to autocracy (or any other highly concentrated power structure.)

  • Er... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I watched it live on WeChat... do I need to feel worried now?

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @10:36AM (#54477409)

    MCTS programs don't care about the winning margin. It was quite clear that Ke Jie was behind, but AlphaGo just didn't take unnecessary risk to win by a large margin.

  • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @10:36AM (#54477413)

    "...that would hurt the national pride of a state which holds Go close to its heart."

    Perhaps we should remind the country that we're talking about a game here.

    Hell, Kasparov lost to Deep Blue 20 years ago. The concept of a world champion being defeated by a computer playing a game ain't exactly new.

    • by mccalli ( 323026 )
      That's statement is also pure editorial and assumption. There's nothing to suggest that's actually the reason - it might well be for other things (demos suddenly occurring or similar, for instance).
      • That's statement is also pure editorial and assumption. There's nothing to suggest that's actually the reason - it might well be for other things (demos suddenly occurring or similar, for instance).

        I'm rereading this statement, but it's failing to make any sense to me. What kind of demonstrations might suddenly occur, and why would that cause broadcasting the match to be banned?

        • by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @11:34AM (#54477835) Homepage
          It's China. They often delay live broadcasts to prevent anything hitting the screen if, say, a Human Rights protester suddenly invades the area and starts waving flags about Tiananmen Square. They often do this with news outlets and interviews of their politicians, for instance.

          The delaying of the game's broadcast may have nothing to do with the game itself, and everything to do with the fact it is an international platform for China.
          • by wbr1 ( 2538558 )
            Most live events in the US are delayed too. So censors can bleep curse words and other anti-puritanical content.
    • The commie mind in mysterious
  • Ah, censorship (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Weaselmancer ( 533834 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @10:37AM (#54477415)

    Because if you didn't see it, it didn't happen.

  • by The Raven ( 30575 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @10:45AM (#54477471) Homepage

    I'm trying to find where to watch an English stream, but all I'm finding is news about China's censorship. That's great, but it's affecting me by proxy because I can't find somewhere that's going to stream it here!

    The second match is at 0330 UTC on Thursday (late evening today, Wednesday, in the US)... where will it be broadcast?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Do no watch GO, do not collect $200.

  • by rs1n ( 1867908 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @10:57AM (#54477559)
    I find it interesting that just a few days ago there was an uproar with respect to the Univ. of Maryland commencement speech by a Chinese student (studying abroad here in the US) on freedom of speech. There was a huge backlash from China. And now this...
    • China doesn't value free speech in the same way that is typical in America. They do very strongly value unity, and stability, and social cohesion.

  • Because what should not be true can't be true! They're evil scum-sucking bastards and we're stupid and evil for trading with them. We're making the mafia that is ruling that country stronger and stronger by buying stuff that is being manufactured there and they keep killing journalists and human rights lawyers that try to stand up for little people being crushed by their mafia.

  • The reality of the modern age of computing...computers are going to be better at a lot of games than humans. Period. Just accept it now. Some games may take longer to match and exceed human capability, but it will eventually happen.

    Welcome to reality,China.

  • I guess Beijing didn't want any weiqileaks.
  • by LetterRip ( 30937 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2017 @02:56PM (#54479485)

    AlphaGo doesn't try and maximize its win margin. It would have won by 15 points or more if the winning margin mattered.

    When all paths lead to victory there is numerical instability in the rollouts so a move that gives a 15 point win margin, might, by chance get say 99.995% chance of winning, but one of the billions of other paths that also lead to a win will, by chance - give a rollout of 99.996% chance of winning. So every move in a won game is essentially random and will tend to reduce the win margin against a skilled opponent (who will always make a move that decreases their loss margin) until the win margin is 1/2.

    • by Eloking ( 877834 )

      AlphaGo doesn't try and maximize its win margin. It would have won by 15 points or more if the winning margin mattered.

      When all paths lead to victory there is numerical instability in the rollouts so a move that gives a 15 point win margin, might, by chance get say 99.995% chance of winning, but one of the billions of other paths that also lead to a win will, by chance - give a rollout of 99.996% chance of winning. So every move in a won game is essentially random and will tend to reduce the win margin against a skilled opponent (who will always make a move that decreases their loss margin) until the win margin is 1/2.

      Well then, I do hope they will activate the "maximal win margin" for the next game. I would love to see what is the gap between the best human player and AlphaGo

  • a more damaging defeat that would hurt the national pride of a state which holds Go close to its heart.

    Does anyone else see a societal pressure point ripe for needling with social media bots?

  • While it is to an extent censorship, it is also their temporary measure to stop a potentially deadly snowball effect.

    Surely there aren't any Professional Go players on slashdot, but do imagine what happen if you've putted in 30 years for a job and found out today it is irrelevant? You will be in despair and so will your colleagues.

    It's not healthy to cause a chain reaction that result in no more new Go players being encouraged to join the competition.

    In fact, I highly doubt even google's researchers have

    • The "Go Market" or the professional go players care not the slightest about the AI.
      The AI will never compete in a professional league.

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