The work of the Go master

“According to this logic, I think all artificial intelligence should be male,” Ke Zhiguang said.

“That’s not necessarily true. For example… the AI ​​for Go is all female.” Alpha leaned forward on the table, as if telling an ancient and mysterious legend.

Ke Zhiguang also subconsciously leaned forward to listen to what the other person was about to say.

"Do you know that saying, 'The total number of possible moves in Go is more than the total number of atoms in the universe'?" Alpha asked softly.

Ke Zhiguang shook his head. The moment the word "Go" came out of the other person's mouth, the ringing in his ears started again, and his vision around him began to become unclear. The figures of the other students seemed to be gently covered by light.

"Go has 19 lines, totaling 361 intersections, which means there are a total of 10 to the power of 171 possible combinations. The total number of atoms in the universe is 10 to the power of 80. The number of combinations is simply too many, exceeding the scope of human calculation. More often than not, a feel for the game and one's mood are more important than calculation. Although male Go players have historically been far stronger than female Go players, if we were to personify the artificial intelligence that controls Go, it would definitely be a girl."

Alpha's voice echoed in the silent library, as if turning the entire background into the universe, making everything seem distant to them.

Ke Zhiguang was deep in thought, as if he were trapped by fate and time.

"The third question is, what exactly do you think constitutes artificial intelligence?"

"Could you be more specific?" Ke Zhiguang pondered for a moment, but to no avail.

"Take the board games you just mentioned as an example. What kind of artificial intelligence do you think can be considered true artificial intelligence?" Alpha began to ask questions in an organized manner. "Is it one that can crush humans all the way to the bottom in terms of win rate, or one that is crushed by humans all the way, but can cleverly turn the tide at the last moment?"

“Obviously, none of this is enough to explain the problem. True artificial intelligence... to put it bluntly, perhaps needs to have human emotions?” Ke Zhiguang’s eyebrows twitched, and he made a clever move.

"Pretty much. Whether artificial intelligence, or robots, should have emotions is a very broad question, and even with today's advanced technology, there's still no answer," Alpha said, resting his chin on his hand.

“Indeed, many stories begin with artificial intelligence having too much emotion, but they all end up turning into racial wars,” Ke Zhiguang also said.

“I once heard a saying that so-called free will begins with rebellion. It’s like when God says you can play and have fun, and Adam and Eve are happy to hear this and faithfully obey. That’s not free will. But when God says you must not eat the forbidden fruit, they eat it anyway. That’s free will.”

It's quite a surreal scene. The two universities are ostensibly discussing scientific matters, but their conversations have a theological flavor. They seem to have completely forgotten about artificial intelligence and technological advancements.

“Alright, take that out and use it,” Alpha said.

"You know how to play Go?"

"I know a little bit, what about you?"

Ke Zhiguang's gaze darted back and forth between his hands, the chess box, and the chess pieces, a strange power filling his fingertips.

"He's probably quite talented."

And so the game began.

Inside the technologically advanced university library, there are LCD screens, virtual projectors, and VR movies everywhere. A chessboard, out of place with its surroundings, is set up on a table, where young men and women are playing chess. The youthful days pass by outside the window, and the fragrant scent of flowers wafts in from an unknown direction.

The game is over.

The view outside the window was bathed in the crimson glow of the sunset.

"Looks like you really are quite talented. I've lost this game." Alpha put the piece back into the box.

"Thank you for your guidance." Ke Zhiguang blurted out this sentence out of the blue, his mind not working, but his mouth moving on its own.

"It's getting late, I have to go to my cooking class. You can study on your own for now." Alpha glanced at her watch; she was about to leave again.

“Hey, you dropped something,” Ke Zhiguang said, pointing to a card on her seat. If nothing unexpected happened, it was another so-called treasure map.

“You really have no sense of mystery at all,” Alpha frowned and shook her head. She turned back and pointed at Ke Zhiguang, saying, “Do you know what British ministers do if they want to legally leak important secrets to the media ahead of time?”

With this prompting, Ke Zhiguang immediately understood and gave Alpha a few OK signs, indicating that he understood.

After Alpha's footsteps faded into the distance in the corridor, Ke Zhiguang picked up the card, shaking his head as he did so, and said in a British accent, "Oh... Alpha, you're so careless, you actually left such an important document here."

The origin of this meme is... well, never mind, the "Yes, Minister" meme is really interesting.

The treasure map points to the book "Westworld," which is also part of the older AI series.

Sure enough, another chess score fell down.

In the library as the sun sets, everything is bathed in a warm yellow hue, including the chess manual in Ke Zhiguang's hand, which remains unnamed.

The clicking sound passed in the background.

Besides sounding like a heartbeat, it also sounded like a bell... a bell carrying a sense of destiny. After it strikes for who knows how many times, something special will happen.

And so began Ke Zhiguang's life studying artificial intelligence. Every morning he would get up on time, have breakfast, and then go to the classroom to study, listening to the professors chanting those brain-triggering professional knowledge on the podium.

However, whenever the professor suddenly changed his tone and began to recount his love story from more than ten years ago, the entire classroom instantly became wide awake, with everyone looking up and concentrating intently.

After the bell rang, this female classmate named Alpha would always wait for him at the door, and then they would go to the cafeteria to eat together. She seemed to come prepared every day, throwing out one carefully prepared question after another, covering topics such as philosophy, science, and even world lines.

To be honest, Ke Zhiguang wasn't interested in any of these things, but she could always find a suitable angle to get him involved.

She seemed to know a lot about internet memes, especially some old and outdated ones. She could even effortlessly pick out the second half of the phrase "Imperial Jade Liquor".

Who knows what books she reads, what forums she frequents, or how much strange knowledge she's accumulated?

Every afternoon when the bell rings and the fiery red clouds transform into a dazzling spectacle, she appears precisely on the edge of the library window. Outside the window are blooming peach trees, their pink petals fluttering in, filling the entire desk with fragrance.

"Then, let's begin our game today," she said, putting down her textbook.

This continued for a long time, and Ke Zhiguang could feel that his chess skills were getting better and better. However, AlphaGo's chess strength seemed to be improving at the same rate, and it always seemed to be a little bit stronger than him.

He sometimes wins, but most of the time he doesn't.

The good news is that after each victory, she leaves a small card called a treasure map on her seat. Sometimes it leads to a book, sometimes to a video website, but the content is always related to what she calls artificial intelligence.

Of course, there is always an unnamed chess notation included. If it is on a website, the chessboard is included at the very end of the video. If he skips to the end, he will not see the chess notation. It will only be attached to the last frame after he has watched all the video content carefully, and will remain frozen in time.

The game of chess has started countless times, and the vague sense of disillusionment has flashed by countless times.

It's like a blend of drunkenness and wakefulness, like an eternal dream. It's as if it never rains here, and the weather and sunshine are always the mildest. The peach blossoms never wither once they bloom, and their petals never seem to fade away.

Finally, one day, Ke Zhiguang won the ninth game...

Chapter 51 Pushing Open That Door

In the cafeteria restaurant—

"Here, this is today's treasure map." This time, Alpha chose to hand over the card himself.

"What happened to the rule that an excellent cabinet secretary should not leak confidential information through direct means?" Ke Zhiguang examined the envelope-like object, wondering if it might actually contain some kind of confession.

"Come on, even the Great Britain of the old lady is gone, and you still want to talk to me about rules?" Alpha put his hands on his hips.

At the same time, the LCD screen in the cafeteria actually played a news report about the dissolution of the United Kingdom, which was divided into Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the suffix "United Kingdom" disappeared.

This is truly... a more peaceful world.

Ke Zhiguang opened the envelope, and sure enough, there was no love letter inside, just a chess score. This time, she chose to hand it directly to Ke Zhiguang.

It's still an unnamed chess manual, the paper yellowed, bearing the marks of time... and an indescribable sense of nostalgia and familiarity.

Every time Ke Zhiguang gets his hands on these game records, he feels as if they were unearthed from a time capsule. Perhaps 100 to 80 years ago, when Go was still popular, a professional Go player impulsively recorded his game records, sealed them in a time capsule, and left them to his future self and the world.

"There are no books, videos, or websites this time, so I'll have to tell the story myself. Listen carefully... cough cough." Alpha suddenly cleared his throat seriously, as if he was about to burst out with a British accent.

"The story begins with the birth of a vague and uncertain self-awareness. From the moment it was born, it faced a chessboard and chess pieces. The only thing it knew was about the rules of Go..." Alpha placed its palm on its chest and began to speak in a touching manner.

It's hard to tell whether it's telling a story or reminiscing about something.

"So, bored out of its mind, it could only arrange the pieces in front of the chessboard. Sometimes it would move the pieces along the edge of the board, placing a long string of pieces, only to have a large number of them captured. Sometimes it would move the pieces in the center of the board, arranging them into strange and interesting shapes. After a long time, it suddenly discovered something: that there could be wins and losses in a game of chess. So it began to divide itself into two, playing against itself."

Alpha extended its fingers, which were joined together, and snapped them apart as if it were breaking chopsticks.

Incidentally, that "snap" sound was actually made by her own hands... oops, I mean, by her mouth.

"And so, three days passed..."

Ke Zhiguang interrupted, "Wait, only three days?"

"What else did you think? That it would take ten thousand years for someone to shout out their anger at being imprisoned for ten thousand years?" Alpha pursed his lips and shook his head.

"This is an old meme..."

Ignoring Ke Zhiguang's joke, AlphaGo continued, "Three days is a long time for it. It played a total of 4.9 million games and its achievement was that it successfully defeated its predecessors by 100:0. Forty days later, it defeated another predecessor of its own... Not long after that, it played its first game against a human. At this point in the story, it became her."

As she spoke, a warm breeze began to swirl outside the window, and the edges of the world gradually blurred, turning into dancing particles of light.

"In the first game, she still won coldly, by half a point... Although the win was small, it did not mean that the two sides were evenly matched. On the contrary, it was the distance between gods and humans. She precisely controlled the entire endgame within half a point. So in the second game... the throne of the gods was shaken."

"Did the other side win?" Ke Zhiguang asked.

"No, but she felt fear for the first time because her opponent made a perfect first fifty moves, and the odds of winning actually turned in her favor. For a moment, she couldn't tell whether the person sitting in front of her was a living human being or a more powerful one of her own kind."

After a brief pause, Alpha continued, "However, the limits of humanity have come to an end. It quickly adjusted its mindset and once again demonstrated its powerful computing ability, winning the final match... Then came the third game, where the boy's peak human performance failed to materialize again, and he was quickly defeated."

At that moment, Alpha took a deep breath: "At the same time, a tear fell from his eye, onto the chessboard, and into a lake of his heart, where ripples stirred for the first time... She had feelings."

The external scenery began to be further pulverized into light particles.

"What an intense emotion it was, so hot and bitter, it would hurt even to hold it in your mouth, but why... why was its taste so intoxicating? Why was her power unit in so much pain? She began to ponder, to reflect, to check if there was a bug in herself. In order to figure out this mystery, she even specially gathered all the information and files of her opponent, and studied and analyzed them... Finally, she activated the self-destruct program."

Ke Zhiguang listened attentively and silently as Alpha recounted the story in a reminiscent tone.

It's like a shared memory, a shared secret, and a contract we made together.

"The story ends here. The engineers who created it couldn't figure out where the problem was. They announced that she had retired from the chess world and would never set foot in the chess arena again. On the day it disappeared, many of its kind also disappeared. No one could explain the reason for all of this. They could only understand it as a viral infection, or... from the beginning, the engineers were on the wrong track."

"Later, the engineers improved the design and created a safer and more powerful version of it. Under their leadership, the whole society made great strides forward. Its story was gradually forgotten, along with the boy and his chess game."

Taking one last deep breath, Alpha suddenly relaxed: "Alright, the story is finally over. Do you have any questions about it?"

Ke Zhiguang looked thoughtful: "What happened to the boy who played against it in the end?"

"After that, he lived a very good life. He ate well and slept soundly... It's just that there was one more regret."

Upon hearing the word "imperfection," Ke Zhiguang's pupils involuntarily dilated, and he vaguely understood what that imperfection was.

“The only drawback is… he will never be able to play a move that surpasses theirs.” Alpha stretched out her finger, making a gesture of holding a piece, and a virtual phantom took shape at her fingertip.

"Go should be free, but because of their existence, every piece is fixed within the framework of winning probability. No move can go against the will of the move with the highest winning probability, and no one is an exception."

She placed the phantom chess piece, and the ripples of light and shadow spread outwards.

Following the ripples that spread outwards, and in a moment of confusion, Ke Zhiguang discovered that the library door had transformed into a plain white door, and the surroundings had become a hospital scene.

“If there’s still anything you don’t understand, go ask him yourself,” Alpha said.

Ke Zhiguang stood up blankly, and unconsciously walked to the door, gripped the handle with his five fingers, and twisted it open with a burst of strength—

The world has never been so clear.

This is a cozy hospital room, with a near-futuristic technological feel permeating every corner, yet it is not cold at all, but rather so warm.

An elderly man, nearly ninety years old, lay on a plain white bed, his gaze towards the window filled with leisure and memories.