Read a piece on the use of AI in the Go community. Curious to learn what you think of it
Human Chess flourished as a pseudo-Esport in the internet era whereas the yearly Computer Chess Championship is followed concurrently by no more than a few hundred nerds online. It turns out that the game’s cultural and economic value comes not from the abstract beauty of top-end performance, but instead from human drama and engagement.
[…] we learned from the many examples of cheating and player confessions that idle curiosity and laziness were the dominant reasons for AI use in our school. Our students would often set out to play a normal game of Go, but would get stuck on a particularly difficult or annoying move; eventually, their curious eyes would drift to their second monitor — where they usually had their AI software running anyway — and they would check the answer as one would sheepishly side-eye the solution to an interesting puzzle or homework problem. Another reason people cited for using AI was an emotional investment in preserving or improving their image within the school community. Some wanted to avoid appearing incompetent and would employ strategies such as only playing moves that lost “n” points or less in expected value according to their computer.
A central part of every student’s retelling was that despite their AI use, they retained artistic control over their output and could exercise agency to think and improve for themselves. The AI felt to them like a tool that helped them fulfill latent potential or artistic sensibilities.
They fire up their computer out of idle curiosity and nod along passively as the truths of the universe float by them. They register the insights not one bit more because they can click the sublime moves. People consistently underestimate just how lost they will be when the solution is no longer right in front of them.
The illusion of control that AI users have reliably shown interacts in an insidious way with their disempowerment. It contributes to a society of Go players that allow their participation in culture to be automated away. They are moreover so disempowered about it that they have built-in psychological mechanisms to keep them from ever recognising their own obsolescence.
[…] we as a species underestimate our own willingness to give up our culture, economy and autonomy to AI, even without monetary incentives.