How to crack "Shengong Intelligence"? Chinese Go has not yet found a "winner or loser", and must find AI for answers
On February 23, the 25th Nongshim Shin Ramen Cup World Go Team Championship ended in Shanghai, and South Korea's Shin Jinzhen Jiudan defeated China's Koo Zihao to win six consecutive victories in this Nongshim Cup to help the South Korean team defend their title. In this competition, Shen Zhenzhen has repeatedly performed highly consistent with AI playing in the face of the "encirclement and suppression" of five Chinese chess players, and is worthy of the title of "Shengong Intelligence". "Shengong Intelligence" has been on the rise since 2020, and Chinese Go can only admit the fact that it has fallen into a trough before finding a way to deal with it.
In 2020, Ke Jie won his eighth World Championship and the last of his career so far. In the four Nongshim Cups since 2020, the South Korean team has achieved four consecutive championships, and Shin Jinzhen has completed the finish four times. Shen Zhenzhen single-handedly became the gatekeeper of the championship of the tournament, and this is a headache for Chinese Go.
As the strongest Go player in the world at the moment, Shin Jinzhen learned chess at the age of 4, successfully set a stage to become a professional chess player at the age of 12, and defeated Lee Chang-ho, who was 37 years old at the time, the following year, and was recognized as the hope star of Korean Go. Since then, Shen Zhenzhen has gone through hibernation, especially after the continuous suppression of the world's top Go players at that time, Park Tinghuan and Ke Jie. Shen Zhenzhen's dormant period is also the golden period of Chinese Go.
From 1988 to 2005, China's Go performance was in a state of lagging behind South Korea for nearly 20 years, and with the resurgence of Go popularity at the beginning of the 21st century, the Korean Go dojo system was introduced to China, and the Nie Dao, Ma Dao, Ge Dao and even the Wild Fox Research Association gradually grew into a mature dojo. Since then, several major Go dojos such as Hangzhou Chess Academy Weiqi School have attracted chess boys from all over the country by virtue of their excellent teachers and good results.
During this period, the Go dojo has a strong training ability, coupled with the polishing and screening of the fixed stage competition, so that Go geniuses can be mass-produced. In addition, Ke Jie was born in 2015 and helped the Chinese Go post-95 group to stand on the dominant position of Go in the world. In contrast, South Korea, which used to lead in the Go competition, relied on the sharpness of one or two players to compete against the thickness of Chinese post-95 players. After the post-00s Shin Zhenzhen, the post-80s Jiang Dongrun, the post-90s Park Tinghuan and Ahn Sung-jun, the post-95s Bian Xiangyi, Shin Minjun, Lee Dongxun, Kim Myung-hoon, Park Jian-ho, and Park Ha-min are weak, and it is difficult for Shin Zhenzhen to pose a real threat alone.
The pandemic in 2020 led to the launch of the World Series online, which also required players to spend more time on computer training. This change coincides with Shin's rise path. It can be said that 2020 was a watershed year in Shin's career. He toppled Park in the 2020 LG Cup to win his first World Championship title, and then started a long winning streak against Chinese players in the Nongshim Cup.
On November 24, 2020, Shen Zhenzhen defeated Tang Weixing in the 9th game of the 22nd Nongshim Cup Three Kingdoms Go Tournament, realizing the suppression of Chinese chess players in the World Series. In that Nongshim Cup, Shin Zhenzhen defeated Tang Weixing, Yang Dingxin and Ke Jie one after another, helping the Korean team win the championship. From November 24, 2020 to November 13, 2022, Shen Zhenzhen maintained a complete victory over Chinese players in the World Series for nearly two years, until Yang Dingxin's disgrace in the semifinals of the 2022 LG Cup, which ended Shin's 24-game winning streak against Chinese chess players. During this period, Shen Zhenzhen has been undefeated against Chinese chess players in six competitions, including Nongshim Cup, Ying's Cup, Chunlan Cup, LG Cup, Samsung Cup, and National Player Mountain Cup.
Shin's 24-game winning streak against Chinese players has sparked a lot of discussion in both South Korea and China, and these discussions are still inconclusive to this day. The voice of the Chinese Go team focuses more on the Chinese players themselves. In South Korea, there are evaluations that South Korea's Go has achieved a lead in China in terms of AI artificial intelligence. In particular, through the use of AI, he conducted a thorough study of China's top Go players, which helped Shin Zhenzhen grasp the weaknesses that Chinese players themselves did not know about.
After the defeat of this year's Nongshim Cup, Yu Bin, the head coach of the Chinese Go team, said: "The annual Nongshim Cup is held after the Spring Festival. In the future, some Lunar New Year Cup competitions may be arranged during the Spring Festival, especially to let the Nongshim Cup players play some games, which is also to consider how to keep the chess players in better condition under our national conditions. ”
The Chinese chess players must have lost during the Chinese New Year, but it is impossible to explain that Shen Zhenzhen's selection of many key moves in the Nongshim Cup against Chinese players completely coincided with the AI's "first choice". This is also the reason why Shen Zhenzhen is called "Shengong Intelligence" by chess fans. During the game, the "chess saint" Nie Weiping also sighed in the discussion with Coach Yu Bin, "This shows that Shen Zhenzhen usually practices a lot, and he can make better choices for those changes in the game process." ”
Yu Bin said that Chinese Go is not lagging behind in terms of hardware and technology, "In fact, in the process of using AI training, we have more choices, and we can also get KataGo (Kata Dog) used in South Korea, but I think we are actually enough in artificial intelligence training." What is more important is how these Chinese players train on a regular basis. ”
In fact, in terms of artificial intelligence training, China and South Korea did start at the same time, and both sides got the localized Go intelligent program and invested in the training of professional chess players after Google's Go artificial intelligence software Alpha GO was announced as open source. The Chinese Go team signed a contract with "Jueyi" to allocate training time and computing power to players of different levels, and Korean players also have relevant software training. During this period, when South Korea was lagging behind in the competition, it once learned China's method of centralized management and centralized training of Go players, and also formed the Korean national team. However, after Shen Zhenzhen's performance fell into a trough, he once withdrew from the national team training camp.
During this period, the Korea Go AI Research Institute announced its establishment on May 20, 2021, with the goal of not developing Go AI, but combining Go AI with Go learning to provide paid personalized guidance services for chess players. The institute analyzes and conducts targeted research on the world's top Go players, and proposes countermeasures through AI for Korean players to train for a fee. The institute believes that in the era of AI, venue, age, strength, etc. have become no longer important. As long as you put in the time and passion, anyone can become a Go master, which is the biggest feature of the AI era.
This has been verified by Chinese chess player Li Xuanhao. 29-year-old Li Xuanhao, 29 years old this year, relied on his interest in Go and trained with a computer equipped with Go AI during the epidemic, and greatly improved his Go level "behind closed doors", once surpassing Ke Jie and other national team teammates to the top of the Chinese Go rating. Li Xuanhao's progress caused shock and incomprehension in the Chinese Go circle, and his Chongqing teammate Yang Dingxin even posted on Moments, openly questioning Li Xuanhao's chess fakes. Fortunately, with the end of the epidemic, Li Xuanhao still achieved good results after the recovery of face chess, which brought this turmoil to an end.
Hua Xueming, vice chairman of the Chinese Go Association, once said: "I only talk about the time spent by the national team players in the training of the mastery AI. We recently checked and found that in the national team, chess players such as Li Xuanhao, Li Weiqing, Zhao Chenyu, Wang Xinghao, and Li He have spent a lot of time training with Jueyi AI. ”
At the 2017 Wuzhen Go Summit in China, the then 19-year-old Ke Jie burst into tears after being defeated 0-3 by Alpha GO in Sanfang, and he may have foreseen the scene today. With the help of Go AI software, the advantages of Go cultivation soil such as Go dojos, teachers, and Go heritage are no longer there, and countries with a backward Go foundation may give birth to top Go masters, and players who were not in the flow in the past may also turn over. At the moment when the AI era is in the ascendant, how to become the best chess player is still the direction that Go people are exploring. The key now is that whoever learns more from AI can get ahead of the curve in the moment. Only by finding this road can Chinese Go cross the hurdle of "Shengong Intelligence".
Text/Beiqingta Sports