Go: Is the portable old man the nine-time champion?

Chapter 444 Mutual Imitation
Zhang Xinping, acting as a human arm for artificial intelligence, conducted a guessing ceremony with Yi Zheng.

Although it was just a simple pre-match event, the area was already packed with reporters' cameras, everyone trying to find the best angle to capture every detail of this highly anticipated match.

The result of the coin toss was quickly revealed: Yi Zheng, or rather, Ke Lao who was playing with his help, played white and went second in the first game.

According to Chinese rules, Black gives a 3.5/4 komi, and it is generally accepted in the Go community that White has a clear advantage.

However, the five-game match mechanism itself involves alternating between black and white. If white starts in the first game, the subsequent games will alternate in the order of white, black, white, black, and a new coin toss will be made in the last game to ensure that both players can have a fair competitive environment to the greatest extent possible.

After receiving the black pieces, Zhang Xinping nodded slightly to the staff next to him, indicating that the artificial intelligence system could officially begin operation.

At this point, artificial intelligence has extremely high requirements for computing power. It can be said that every second of its operation involves a continuous investment of a large amount of resources, as if silently burning through funds.

However, later on, most of the artificial intelligences that could easily defeat professional ninth-dan players or even the world's number one no longer relied on such massive computing power. They have even become commonplace in the homes of ordinary Go players and have become part of their daily lives.

Of course, this directly leads to a situation where it's impossible to distinguish between humans and dogs in online Go games. You never know whether your opponent is a human or a dog, or when they will switch from human to dog.

After confirming that both sides were ready, Ma Zhaoxu, the special referee for this match, stood up and announced loudly: "This match will be played according to the rules of Chinese Go. Both sides will have two hours of time left, with five one-minute overtime periods."

Now, I declare—the first game of the five-game match between human and machine in the Lankeshan Chess Master game has officially begun! All reporters, please leave the area in an orderly fashion in ten minutes!

Upon hearing the command to officially start the match, Yi Zheng, who was moving later, calmly pressed the timer. He then glanced sideways at Elder Ke, who was taking a deep breath of non-existent void energy beside him.

"give it to you."

"Don't worry, we will definitely win."

Although Mr. Ke had longed for this moment countless times, he still couldn't help but feel nervous when he actually stepped onto the field.

He had dreamed countless times of what it would be like to start his life over again, to stand on the field once more, and to face his true lifelong rival once more.

Now that I've actually gotten this opportunity, it feels both incredibly real and incredibly unreal. The real opponent and the illusory self—everything seems to have been turned upside down.

However, this may very well be the only time in my life.

"Our first step! Star position!"

"In this game, the AI ​​FineArt played black and made the first move, using a star point and a large knight's move to defend the corner. White also chose the exact same opening."

Black chose a small knight's move... White also chose a small knight's move? Black extended along the side, White extended?

Is Yi Zheng using a copycat game? Is it necessary to go this far to counter artificial intelligence?

Jiang Mobai stared at the black and white pieces that were quickly placed on the chessboard, and couldn't help but be stunned for a moment. Because both sides were playing at an extremely fast pace, Yi Zheng almost always followed up with a piece without hesitation within one or two seconds of the black piece being placed.

The problem is that every move White makes is a mirror image of Black's moves, quickly creating a perfectly symmetrical board position – this is the legendary "mimicry" tactic.

Yi Zheng could also sense this, but he didn't say anything. After all, Elder Ke was probably testing the waters before deciding on the true strength of the AI. However…

Ke Lao used to be very confident that he could win, but when he actually went on the field, he seemed to become less confident and even a little hesitant.

There's nothing inherently wrong with imitation chess, but the problem is that if you lack an indomitable spirit, you'll find yourself on the defensive during the game.

Sitting opposite Yi Zheng, Zhang Xinping seemed to sense what Yi Zheng was trying to do. Looking back now, he realized that artificial intelligence really didn't have any experience dealing with this kind of thing, since this tactic was almost never seen in professional matches.

Looking at the few possible moves on his computer screen, Zhang Xinping gritted his teeth and made a decisive move, placing a black stone directly at the center point (Tengen), forcefully stopping Yi Zheng from continuing to imitate.

Looking at Boss Zhang, who was forcefully stopping him from imitating, Old Ke subconsciously touched his chin: "It seems that the world's artificial intelligence does not have any effective way to crack the imitation game, otherwise it would not have used the method of killing eight hundred enemies while losing a thousand of its own to forcibly crack it."

Next move: a sharp spike to the top right corner, followed by a small knight's run to defend the corner!

Now that the other party has forcibly stopped imitating, Mr. Ke has to turn the tables and take the initiative to attack.

Interestingly, after Master Ke stopped imitating Fine Art, whether it was intentional on Master Zhang's part or the AI ​​developed emotions, Fine Art actually started imitating Master Ke's moves.

Zhang Xinping also found this scene somewhat amazing. He didn't do it on purpose; it was just how the artificial intelligence chose the location—it was an autonomous choice by the AI.

With great interest, Professor Ke raised his hand high into the air to see if the world's artificial intelligence would further imitate it.

However, artificial intelligence clearly doesn't have that kind of confrontational mentality. When it thinks that this imitation is worthless, it decisively moves up to the star position in the lower right corner.

"This move is a classic tactic from Yi Zheng's past games. It seems that this artificial intelligence has also learned a lot from Yi Zheng's game records, and in a way, it can be considered Yi Zheng's apprentice."

However, defeating Yi Zheng using Yi Zheng's techniques would be extremely difficult.

As Jiang Mobai spoke, he couldn't help but shake his head. After all, the method of using Yi's spear to attack Yi's shield had been tried countless times by the national team and various top players from abroad.

In the end, they returned empty-handed.

It is probably impossible for artificial intelligence to make a breakthrough in this area.

"This is a fairly common move, where Black cuts off from here."

My last experience with artificial intelligence was that it could learn how to play standard moves by studying human chess records, but it only knew how to memorize them and didn't understand how to better coordinate moves in specific situations.

As humans, I believe that our ability to see the big picture is far superior to that of artificial intelligence. We humans have abstract thinking that allows us to consider the overall situation, which is something that artificial intelligence lacks and that I believe it is impossible for it to surpass humans.

Yi Zheng changed the order here, choosing to attack from the inside first and then turn to the side.

(End of this chapter)