In 2016, AlphaGo, an AI system, defeated a top Korean player in Go, a strategy game, and it had a significant impact on decision-making for professional Go players. A research group led by Minkyu Shin from City University of Hong Kong analyzed this impact and found that AI inspires humans to adopt new strategies. The team suggests that innovative thinking, which is provoked by AI, is passed from human to human.
To achieve their findings, the research group analyzed data collections on professionally played Go games going back to the 1950s. They compared the moves recorded in it by having an AI determine how the respective game would have ended if other decisions had been made. They found that after AlphaGo’s win, humans started to make significantly better decisions, leaving traditional strategies behind and trying out new moves.
The research group also discovered that the increase in new moves in the early phase of the games is the reason for this positive change. The Novelty Index, which indicates the move from which a game differs from all previous ones and becomes unique, has been significantly higher than in previous years since AlphaGo’s win.
Moreover, the research group added 600,000 moves developed by an AI to the dataset and found that this did not change the picture. The team says that technology’s impact is worth investigating as it raises further questions about the consequences of the advent of superhuman AI.
The strategy game Go is considered the most complex among well-known games, particularly in East Asia. Artificial intelligence found it significantly more challenging than chess, and within a few months, AlphaGo defeated several of the world’s strongest professionals. Lee Sedol, a professional player, even justified the end of his professional career with the superiority of Go programs. The AlphaGo project was discontinued in 2017, and only at the beginning of this year did an American surprise everyone by defeating two particularly advanced systems without the help of a computer.
In conclusion, while AI systems have caused concerns about creating art and writing stories, this study shows a positive effect on human decision-making. The team suggests that this positive change is not limited to Go, and it is worth investigating the impact of technology in decision-making paths.
