Checkmate humanity: In four hours, a robot taught itself chess, then beat a grandmaster with moves never devised in the game’s 1,500-year history and the implications are terrifying
Robot taught itself chess in just four hours and learned moves never seen before
Oxford academic: AI could go rogue and become too complex for engineers
AlphaZero surpassed years of human knowledge in just a few hours of chess
By JOHN NAISH
DAILYMAIL.COM
21 December 2017
Will robots one day destroy us? It’s a question that increasingly preoccupies many of our most brilliant scientists and tech entrepreneurs.
For developments in artificial intelligence (AI) — machines programmed to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence — are poised to reshape our workplace and leisure time dramatically.
This year, a leading Oxford academic, Professor Michael Wooldridge, warned MPs that AI could go ‘rogue’, that machines might become so complex that the engineers who create them will no longer understand them or be able to predict how they function.
Yes, it’s a concern, but a ‘historic’ new development makes unpredictable decisions by AI machines the least of our worries. And it all started with a game of chess.
AlphaZero, an AI computer program, this month proved itself to be the world’s greatest ever chess champion, thrashing a previous title-holder, another AI system called Stockfish 8, in a 100-game marathon.
So far, so nerdy, and possibly something only chess devotees or computer geeks might get excited about.
But what’s so frighteningly clever about AlphaZero is that it taught itself chess in just four hours. It was simply given the rules and — crucially — instructed to learn how to win by playing against itself.
In doing so, it assimilated hundreds of years of chess knowledge and tactics — but then went on to surpass all previous human invention in the game.
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