I adore Go and have since I was little and my grandparents had an old set. My sister and I taught each other based on the yellowed instructional slip. Then I found, at the public library, a few volumes of a manga on Go, "Hikaru no Go" (dorky, but beautiful) when I was eight or nine. It's all about a ghost haunting a Go board, trapped in their search for the "divine move." The most magical Go moment I've ever had, though, was when I was in a hospital for a while and a little friend of mine (another patient, who was only twelve or so at the time) showed up with a Go board. It turned out her dad was a great player, and we played for hours and hours together over the next few weeks. It felt so special and rare in ways I'm still struggling to put into words--putting down stones, trying to create "life" and "eyes" and "breath," not talking about if we were getting better physically or mentally, but just in terms of the game we were sharing together. Go is very special indeed! (Also, Nazli, I adore your newsletter and everything you write.)
Gwyneth, thank you so much for sharing this! I hope you'll write about this moment in a story one day. Also, I just found Hikaru no Go's anime adaptation on Hulu and I'm about to press play!
I'd never heard of Go before reading this piece, and if I didn't love all your writing to the point of reading anything by you that hits my inbox, I'd have continued to ignore its existence. So, thank you for making me learn about it. And (since this is my first comment below a piece of yours) thank you for writing.
(and btw I LOVED this: "I hate the internet for all the reasons you do. I hate that it makes me feel like nothing I accomplish is good enough. I hate that whenever I go on the Substack app it shows me five news posts by writers with 5000+ subscribers talking about how they do it. I hate that I keep typing “gm” in my search bar and press enter at least once an hour even when I block all distracting websites to write.")
Thank you for leading me to the documentary on AlphaGo. I was particularly moved by Lee Sedol. His demeanor, voice and refined manners made him seem younger than his age, and I attributed his naive opening statement that he would win all games to his youth. His words in the aftermath, about the emergence of the ultimate Go winner are telling. Obviously he knew little about AI, which he tried to beat again by playing HanDoi with a similar (1 win 2 losses) result. If he knew about AI he would be even happier with his one win and his exquisite #78 move that proved to the universe what AI has still to master, to choose from 1 in 10,000 possibilities, which 'is picked as the only option' by brilliant Lee Sedol's accumulated experience and neural connections. There are other #78 moves, the discovery of PCR, the battle of Anafartalar, the application of mRNA in vivo technology to use as a CoviD-19 vaccine. I never made a 78 move but it is alignment of brilliance, commitment and luck. AI does and will surpass ordinary neural networks. It is after all programmed by brilliant people, unfortunately global AI workforce is staffed %78 by men which I think, seriously, will hinder it's results in many areas until it will correct itself. Lastly, I appreciated hearing about 'The Maniac' as a next read.
Happy to hear that my post led you to the documentary and this very important comment. I 100% agree, the gender gap is hindering the results already. But the fact that AlphaGo influenced Go players not to invade & capture unnecessarily made me feel a little less scared of the cyborg days ahead. Feminist philosophers have been making connections between women and "robots" for a long time. I'll revisit some old notes and explore this in a letter soon.
When I got the notification for this post I was reading the end of Benjamin Labatut’s The Maniac. The last section of the book is about AlphaGo and the matches Lee Sedol played against it. I’m not sure if it would be redundant after the documentary but I found the story as he tells it wild
I adore Go and have since I was little and my grandparents had an old set. My sister and I taught each other based on the yellowed instructional slip. Then I found, at the public library, a few volumes of a manga on Go, "Hikaru no Go" (dorky, but beautiful) when I was eight or nine. It's all about a ghost haunting a Go board, trapped in their search for the "divine move." The most magical Go moment I've ever had, though, was when I was in a hospital for a while and a little friend of mine (another patient, who was only twelve or so at the time) showed up with a Go board. It turned out her dad was a great player, and we played for hours and hours together over the next few weeks. It felt so special and rare in ways I'm still struggling to put into words--putting down stones, trying to create "life" and "eyes" and "breath," not talking about if we were getting better physically or mentally, but just in terms of the game we were sharing together. Go is very special indeed! (Also, Nazli, I adore your newsletter and everything you write.)
Gwyneth, thank you so much for sharing this! I hope you'll write about this moment in a story one day. Also, I just found Hikaru no Go's anime adaptation on Hulu and I'm about to press play!
That endlessly thrills me--hope you love it!
I adore your writing as well 🩵
I'd never heard of Go before reading this piece, and if I didn't love all your writing to the point of reading anything by you that hits my inbox, I'd have continued to ignore its existence. So, thank you for making me learn about it. And (since this is my first comment below a piece of yours) thank you for writing.
(and btw I LOVED this: "I hate the internet for all the reasons you do. I hate that it makes me feel like nothing I accomplish is good enough. I hate that whenever I go on the Substack app it shows me five news posts by writers with 5000+ subscribers talking about how they do it. I hate that I keep typing “gm” in my search bar and press enter at least once an hour even when I block all distracting websites to write.")
Thank you Silvio 🤍🤍
Thank you for leading me to the documentary on AlphaGo. I was particularly moved by Lee Sedol. His demeanor, voice and refined manners made him seem younger than his age, and I attributed his naive opening statement that he would win all games to his youth. His words in the aftermath, about the emergence of the ultimate Go winner are telling. Obviously he knew little about AI, which he tried to beat again by playing HanDoi with a similar (1 win 2 losses) result. If he knew about AI he would be even happier with his one win and his exquisite #78 move that proved to the universe what AI has still to master, to choose from 1 in 10,000 possibilities, which 'is picked as the only option' by brilliant Lee Sedol's accumulated experience and neural connections. There are other #78 moves, the discovery of PCR, the battle of Anafartalar, the application of mRNA in vivo technology to use as a CoviD-19 vaccine. I never made a 78 move but it is alignment of brilliance, commitment and luck. AI does and will surpass ordinary neural networks. It is after all programmed by brilliant people, unfortunately global AI workforce is staffed %78 by men which I think, seriously, will hinder it's results in many areas until it will correct itself. Lastly, I appreciated hearing about 'The Maniac' as a next read.
Happy to hear that my post led you to the documentary and this very important comment. I 100% agree, the gender gap is hindering the results already. But the fact that AlphaGo influenced Go players not to invade & capture unnecessarily made me feel a little less scared of the cyborg days ahead. Feminist philosophers have been making connections between women and "robots" for a long time. I'll revisit some old notes and explore this in a letter soon.
When I got the notification for this post I was reading the end of Benjamin Labatut’s The Maniac. The last section of the book is about AlphaGo and the matches Lee Sedol played against it. I’m not sure if it would be redundant after the documentary but I found the story as he tells it wild
Thank you for the recommendation! The Maniac had been sitting in my library for months, but now it's on my desk & to be read this weekend.