AlphaGo Beats Lee Sedol in Final Game - <AUTHOR> https://gogameguru.com/alphago-5/ <comment><USER4> This was probably the closest game in the series. Livestream: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzpW10DPHeQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzpW10DPHeQ)

A few months back, the expert consensus was that we were many years away from an AI playing Go at the 9-dan level. Now it seems that we've already surpassed that point. What this underscores, if anything, is the accelerating pace of technological growth, for better or for worse.

In game four, we saw Lee Sedol make a brilliant play, and AlphaGo make a critical mistake (typical of monte carlo-trained algorithms) following it. There's no doubt that with further refinement, we'll soon see AI play Go at a level well beyond human: games one through three already featured extraordinarily strong (and innovative) play on part of AlphaGo.

Previous Discussions:

Game 4: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11276798](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11276798)

Game 3: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11271816](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11271816)

Game 2: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11257928](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11257928)

Game 1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11250871](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11250871)

<comment><USER5> >A few months back, the expert consensus was that we were many years away from an AI playing Go at the 9-dan level.

These kinds of predictions are almost always useless. You can always find people who say it'll take _n_ years before _x_ happens, but no one can predict which approaches will work, and how much improvement they'll confer.

> What this underscores, if anything, is the accelerating pace of > technological growth, for better or for worse.

What? This is a non-sequitur. Continued advancement doesn't mean that it is _accelerating_ , and even if this does represent an unexpected achievement that doesn't mean that future development will maintain that pace.

Appreciate it for what it is - an historic achievement for AI & ML - and stop trying to attach broader significance to it.

<comment><USER4> > These kinds of predictions are almost always useless.

Let's rephrase. For a long time, the expert consensus regarding Go was that it was extremely difficult to write strongly-performing AI for. From the AlphaGo Paper: Go presents "difficult decision-making tasks; an intractable search space; and an optimal solution so complex it appears infeasible to directly approximate using a policy or value function."

For many years, the state-of-the-art Go AI stagnated or grew very slowly, reaching at most the amateur dan level. AlphaGo presents a huge and surprising leap.

> Continued advancement doesn't mean that it is accelerating

Over constant time increases, AI is tackling problems that appear exponentially more difficult. In particular, see Checkers (early '90s) vs Chess ('97) vs Go ('16). The human advantage has generally been understood to be the breadth of the game tree, nearly equivalent to the complexity of the game.

If we let _x_ be the maximum complexity of a task at which AI performs as well as a human, then I would argue that _x_ has been growing at an accelerating pace over the past few decades.

<comment><USER6> > AI is tackling problems that appear exponentially more difficult.

The hard _est_ AI problems are the ones that involve multiple disciplines in deep ways. Here's a top tier artificial intelligence problem: given a plain English description of a computer program, implement it in source code.

There might be some cases where this is possible, and some cases are bound to fail.

Those are the kind of difficult problems in AI, which combine knowledge, understanding, thought, intuition, inspiration, and perspiration - or demand invention. We would be lucky to make linear progress in this area let alone exponential growth.

I think there's certainly an impression of exponential progress in AI in popular culture, but the search space is greater than factorial in size, and I think hackers should know that.

<comment><USER7> > _To be fair, in terms of the complexity of rules, checkers is easier to > understand than go which is easier to understand than chess. And honestly, > go seems like the kind of brute-force simple, parallel problem that we can > solve now without too much programming effort_

Your intuition is mistaken. Go is indeed "easier to understand" than Chess in terms of its rules, but it is arguably harder to play well and has a way larger search space, which makes it less amenable to brute force, and this was precisely why people thought it'd be impossible for a computer to play it consistently at champion level.

I don't think the achievement of AlphaGo is solely due to increased processing power, otherwise why did people think Go was such a hard problem?

<comment><USER8> > it is arguably harder to play well and has a way larger search space, which > makes it less amenable to brute force, and this was precisely why people > thought it'd be impossible for a computer to play it consistently at > champion level.

Are human champions not subject to those same difficulties of the game, though? When you're pitting the AI against another player who's also held back by the large branching factor of the search tree, then how relevant really is that branching factor anyway in the grand scheme of things? A lot of people talk about Go's search space as if human players magically aren't affected by it too. And the goal here was merely to outplay a human, not to find the perfect solution to the game in general.

(These are honest questions -- I am not an AI researcher of any kind.)

<comment><USER9> Go players rely heavily on pattern recognition and heuristics, something we know humans to be exceptionally good at.

For example, go players habitually think in terms of "shape"[1]. Good shape is neither too dense (inefficiently surrounding territory) or too loose (making the stones vulnerable to capture). Strong players intuitively see good shape without conscious effort.

Go players will often talk about "counting" a position[2] - <USER2> counting stones and spaces to estimate the score or the general strength of a position. This is in contrast to their usual mode of thinking, which is much less quantitative.

Go is often taught using proverbs[3], which are essentially heuristics. Phrases like "An eye of six points in a rectangle is alive" or "On the second line eight stones live but six stones die" are commonplace. They are very useful in developing the intuition of a player.

As I understand it, the search space is largely irrelevant to human players because they rarely perform anything that approximates a tree search. Playing out imaginary moves ("reading", in the go vernacular) is generally used sparingly in difficult positions or to confirm a decision arrived at by intuition.

Go is the board game that most closely maps to the human side of Moravec's paradox[4], because calculation has such low value. AlphaGo uses some very clever algorithms to minimise the search space, but it also relies on 4-5 orders of magnitude more computer power than Deep Blue.

      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_(Go)
      [2] http://senseis.xmp.net/?Counting
      [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_proverb
      [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> By the way, for those who want to learn by themselves, there are a lot of ways to play Go against a computer in a way that is friendly for beginners.

My rough journey so far - on a Mac, but much of this can be done on Linux - <USER3> started out playing 9x9 games against Gnugo, giving myself as much handicap as possible (without it resigning immediately), and then removing stones as I improve. I got to the point where I could sometimes beat 9x9 when I started with two extra stones, and then I started with 19x19.

Took me a while to win 19x19 with 9 stones, but then I won by learning a bit more about extending on hane. Then you can improve from there.

After that point, you can also switch to fuego or pachi, which are stronger by default. The end result is it really is easy and possible to learn a ton just by playing against software, tracking your ability throughout, just by picking programs with different strength and handicap levels.

I've also enjoyed using GoGui to pit two computer programs against each other and watch how they play with various handicaps.

Then there's all the puzzles - goproblems.com, smartgo, etc. Finally, there are plenty of ebooks you can buy through smartgo books.

This doesn't get into playing against humans on the various servers, but there's plenty of information about that online.

<comment><USER11> Which program do you use on the Mac? A long time ago I've used Goban[1] and I enjoyed it very much, but it's not available here in the App Store and apparently it doesn't fully work yet on El Capitan. (I don't know if it's not available right now because of the El Capitan problems or for some other reason.)

What are some good go programs for the iPhone, both for playing and for learning/improving?

[1] [http://www.sente.ch/?p=1206&lang=en](http://www.sente.ch/?p=1206&lang=en)

<comment><USER10> Goban is working for me on El Capitan, but I installed it before upgrading. There's also the older free version which might still be up on a webpage somewhere.

But the better option is that I was able to get GoGui working - I did have to manually build/compile it myself but there is a way to build it so that it creates a real OS X Application. It's quite good, you can set any board position and then tell a computer program to respond from that point.

[http://gogui.sourceforge.net](http://gogui.sourceforge.net)

EDIT: For the iPhone I like SmartGo Kifu for playing games. 'Tsumego Pro' and 'GoProblems' for puzzles (they're adaptive) and 'Go Books' by smartgo for ebooks.

<comment><USER12> I second the SmarGo Kifu

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great game and amazing series/match. This last one was absolutely nail biting. My hat off to the AlphaGo team and to Mr. Lee Sedol. Sedol showed incredible fighting spirit and stamina. Just imagine sitting through a 5 hour game like that last one, with full concentration all the time. And seeing the expression of exhaustion and disappointment on Sedol's face after last moves and his resignation. Phew... I bet that he came in rather confident into this last game, after beating AlphaGo in the fourth, figuring he had found a weakness. And he seemed to have a rather good start, securing a decent territory in the lower right corner. We can all marvel at the machine/software the DeepMind team has built, but still I feel that the real marvel is the human brain. Will we learn anything from this series, about how it functions and evaluates game positions in a stratetgic games? The classic problem/mystery is how extremely good the human brain is at pruning game-trees. Whole branches are thrown out in split seconds and probably never explored. Currently taking a watt-for-watt comparison there is no question about whose "hardware" is superior -> Lee Sedol's brain. But I guess the DeepMind team and the community will take plenty of lessons from this and in a few years span, Lee Sedol's phone will beat him 100% of the time. At least I wouldn't be willing to bet against it, even though we are hitting the roof in Moore's law.

<comment><USER14> I would love to compare the energy requirements of the AlphaGo and Mr. Sedol. I imagine there are many orders of magnitude in difference between them. Perhaps the most fair comparison would be between a computer that uses no more energy than a human does. Or, to let the human work with a computer provided they do not use more total energy to play the game.

<comment><USER15> Nice question!

To make it fair, do you include the energy used to train it? From scratch, or from the amateur human game data?

Likewise, do you include the energy used to evolve the human brain?

<comment><USER14> > Likewise, do you include the energy used to evolve the human brain?

I was thinking of this in a limited, human-promoting sense. We shouldn't lose sight of our own special powers just because a computer the size of a house can outsmart us in a specialized domain :)

<comment><USER16> ...Especially when, you know, we _made_ that computer....

That's the really impressive part IMO. AlphaGo is an incredibly cool creation. Hats off to the DeepMind team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My rough summary of the match, informed by the various commentators and random news stories.

Game 1: Lee Sedol does not know what to expect. He plays testing moves early and gets punished, losing the game decisively.

Game 2: Lee Sedol calms down and plays as if he is playing a strong opponent. He plays strong moves waiting for AlphaGo to make a mistake. AlphaGo responds calmly keeping a lead throughout the game.

Game 3: Lee Sedol plans a strategy to attack white from the start, but fails. He valiantly plays to the end, creating an interesting position after the game was decided deep in AlphaGo's territory.

Game 4: Lee Sedol focuses on territory early on, deciding to replicate his late game invasion from the previous game, but on a larger scale earlier in the game. He wins this game with a brilliant play at move 78.

Game 5: The prevailing opinion ahead of the game was that AlphaGo was weak at attacking groups. Lee Sedol crafted an excellent early game to try to exploit that weakness.

Tweet from Hassabis midgame [0]:

        #AlphaGo made a bad mistake early in the game (it didnt know a known tesuji) but now it is trying hard to claw it back... nail-biting.

After a back and forth late middlegame, Myungwan Kim 9p felt there were many missed chances that caused Lee Sedol to ultimately lose the game by resignation in the late endgame behind a few points.

Ultimately, this match was a momentous occasion for both the AI and the go community. My big curiosity is how much more AlphaGo can improve. Did Lee Sedol find fundamental weaknesses that will continue to crop up regardless of how many CPUs you throw at it? How would AlphaGo fare against opponents with different styles? Perhaps Park Jungwhan, a player with a stronger opening game. Or perhaps Ke Jie, the top ranked player in the world [1], given that they'd have access to the game records of Lee Sedol?

I also wonder if the quick succession of these games on an almost back-to-back game schedule played a role in Lee Sedol's loss.

Myungwan Kim felt that if Lee Sedol were to play AlphaGo once more, the game would be a coinflip since AlphaGo is likely stronger, but would never fix its weakness between games.

[0]: [https://twitter.com/demishassabis/status/709635140020871168](https://twitter.com/demishassabis/status/709635140020871168)

[1]: [http://www.goratings.org/](http://www.goratings.org/)

<comment><USER18> > Did Lee Sedol find fundamental weaknesses that will continue to crop up > regardless of how many CPUs you throw at it?

Unrelated to Go and this article, but I wonder if I'm the only one for whom such commentary evokes an image of future warfare between AI and humans; ruthlessly efficient machines against which many people give their lives, to find a weakness that can be exploited by future generations. :)

<comment><USER19> Why would an AI _want_ to make war with humans, in the first place?

<comment><USER20> Computers do what you say, not what you mean. If I write a function and name it quickSort, that's no guarantee that the function is a correctly implemented sorting algorithm. If I write a function called beNiceToHumans, that's no guarantee that the function is a correct implementation of being nice to humans.

It's relatively easy to formally describe what it means for a list to be sorted, and prove that a particular algorithm always sorts a list correctly. But it's next to impossible to formally describe what it means to be nice to humans, and proving the correctness of an algorithm that did this is also extremely difficult.

These considerations start to look really important if we're talking about an AI that's (a) significantly smarter than humans and (b) has some degree of autonomy (can creatively work to achieve goals, can modify its own code, has access to the Internet). And as soon as the knowledge of how to achieve (a) is widely available, some idiot will inevitably try adding (b).

Note: Elon Musk and Sam Altman apparently think spreading (a) to everyone is a good way to mitigate the problem I describe. This doesn't make sense to me. You can read my objections in detail here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10721621](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10721621) There's another critique of their approach here: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/17/should-ai-be- open/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/17/should-ai-be-open/)

If you're interested to learn more, here's a good essay series on the topic of AI: [http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence- revolu...](http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence- revolution-1.html)

<comment><USER21> The funny thing is that this "computers do what you say, not what you mean" comes directly from their _lack_ of intelligence. So it's kind of strange that we talk about the threats of _superintelligence_ brought along by the fact that, fundamentally, a machine is _stupid_. Am I the only one to see a slight contradiction there?

<comment><USER22> Goals are orthogonal to intelligence. The fact that the AI understands what you want won't motivate it to change what it's optimizing. It's not being dumb, it's being _literal_.

You asked it to make lots of paperclips, tossing you into an incinerator as fuel slightly increases the expected number of paper clips in the universe, so into the incinerator you go. Your complaints that you didn't mean _that many_ paperclips are too little, too late. It's a paperclip-maximizer, not a complaint-minimizer.

Choosing the goal for a superintelligent AI a goal is like choosing your wish for a monkey's paw[1][2]. You come up with some clever idea, like "make me happy" or "find out what makes me happy, then do that", but the process of mechanizing that goal introduces some weird corner case strategy that horrifies you while doing really well on the stated objective (e.g. wire- heading you, or disassembling you to do a really thorough analysis before moving on to step 2).

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey's_Paw](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey's_Paw) 2: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/ld/the_hidden_complexity_of_wishes/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/ld/the_hidden_complexity_of_wishes/)

<comment><USER23> I would suggest that a computer is not 'super intelligent' until it can modify it's goals.

Further, maximizing paperclips in the long term may not involve building any paperclips for a very long time. [https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/](https://what- if.xkcd.com/4/)

<comment><USER20> >I would suggest that a computer is not 'super intelligent' until it can modify it's goals.

This is a purely semantic distinction. Thought experiment: Let's say I modify your brain the minimum amount necessary to make it so you are incapable of modifying your goals. (Given the existence of extremely stubborn people, this is not much of a stretch.) Then I upload your brain in to computer, give you a high speed internet connection, and speed up your brain so you do a year of subjective thinking over the course of every minute. At this point you are going to be able to quit a lot of intelligent-seeming work towards achieving whatever your goals are, despite the fact that you're incapable of modifying them.

<comment><USER23> Your assuming you can do work without modifying goals. I have preferences, but my goals change based on new information. Suppose bob won the lottery and ignored that to work 80 hours a week to get a promotion to shift manager at work untill the prize expired. Is that intelegent behavior?

<comment><USER22> You're confusing instrumental goals with terminal goals.

<comment><USER23> Try and name some of your terminal goals. Continuing to live seems like a great one, except there are many situations where people will chose to die and you can't list them all ahead of time.

At best you end up with something like maximizing your personal utility function. But, defacto your utility function changes over time, so it's at best a goal in name only. Which means it's not actually a fixed goal.

Edit: from the page _It is not known whether humans have terminal values that are clearly distinct from another set of instrumental values._

<comment><USER22> That's true. Many behaviors (including human behaviors) are better understood outside of the context of goals [1].

But I don't think that affects whether it makes sense to modify your terminal goals (to the extent that you have them). It affects whether or not it makes sense to describe us in terms of terminal goals. With an AI we can get a much better approximation of terminal goals, and I'd be really surprised if we wanted it to toy around with those.

1: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/6ha/the_blueminimizing_robot/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/6ha/the_blueminimizing_robot/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ken Jennings just welcomed Lee Sedol to the "Human Loser Club"

[http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2016/03/...](http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2016/03/google_s_alphago_defeated_go_champion_lee_sedol_ken_jennings_explains_what.html)

Pretty good article here.

<comment><USER25> Jennings is a surprisingly good and humorous writer. (I say "surprising" because there is no reason to expect that someone so good at Jeopardy would also be so good at expressing himself with such charming self-deprecation.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> After the first 3 games I thought that AlphaGo was far beyond human level, but it's a harder call to make now. It seems very unlikely that an AI would be very close to exactly matching a human, one would expect it to be much stronger or much weaker.

Perhaps humans are closer to the "Perfect Game" than we think? [http://hikago.wikia.com/wiki/Hand_of_God](http://hikago.wikia.com/wiki/Hand_of_God) The top players estimate they would need a 4 stone advantage to win a perfect player.

<comment><USER27> I think AlphaGo is best described as, "Superhuman, but with bugs."[1] The software is very young. I bet these glitches will become ever rarer over time.

> The top players estimate they would need a 4 stone advantage to win a > perfect player.

The branching factor for Go is so huge that I doubt anyone or anything comes close to optimal play. I heavily discount the opinions of most Go players on this topic, as they've been right about very little lately. Before AlphaGo existed, many of them thought it would be decades before a Go AI beat the best humans. Before this tournament, the vast majority of them predicted that Lee Sedol would trounce AlphaGo. And during the live commentary, I saw multiple 9 dan pros estimate that AlphaGo was behind, then gradually realize that it was winning. That's exactly what happens when you encounter a much more formidable player.

1\. Coined by Eliezer Yudkowsky: [https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10154024894449228](https://www.facebook.com/yudkowsky/posts/10154024894449228)

<comment><USER28> "Superhuman, but with bugs." ...this is the future that is coming :)

<comment><USER29> This :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Really interesting and close match, it was great listening to the expert player analyse the game and having the final score be uncertain until very late in the game.

I found the discussion around weaknesses in the Monte Carlo tree search algorithm interesting. It sounds like the opinion from the expert is that there are some inherent weaknesses in how MCTS tends to play moves against theoretical moves from the opponent that don't make sense; ie. that AlphaGo sees a potential win that would only happen if the human player made very bad moves. It's fascinating that the seeming weakness in AlphaGo would come from the algorithmic part of the AI and not the neural net. Could it be that as the neural net becomes stronger and stronger at the game, eventually the algorithmic part of it would become less useful to it? If that's the case, it really feels like this could be the path to truly general AI.

<comment><USER31> I think the "weakness" isn't that much of a weakness in the sense, that it's still playing optimally given it's search space – but it doesn't know how to overplay to make a comeback. (Overplay is a non-optimal play that is intended to be confusing for the opponent. AlphaGo doesn't regard it's opponent in any way, or assess what might be confusing for him, it just plays moves that it thinks are optimal.)

A (min-max, alpha-beta-pruning) tree search is the optimal way to determine your best move if you can afford to search the situation space globally. However, as that's clearly impossible, there's clever ways to reduce the search space. Random pruning, as a "normal" monte carlo search would do, or semi-random pruning with a neural network estimating the situations, like AlphaGo does.

However, as the search space is now non-global, it might exclude the optimal solution. And thus, the min-max-assumption doesn't hold: your opponent might come up with moves that you didn't think of, screwing your calculations off.

If your opponent is a god ( = can afford global search space), or at least has a search space that is a strict superset of yours, it's "game over, man".

But: if your opponent isn't a god, it's likely that his search space is NOT the same as yours. And you can exploit the fact. If you have any idea what kind of search space your opponent has, you can come up with moves, that he couldn't have included in his tree search, and bet on that his/her "hidden" moves aren't better than yours.

Currently AlphaGo doesn't do that. It behaves like it'd be playing against... well, against another AlphaGo.

<comment><USER32> > If your opponent [...] has a search space that is a strict superset of > yours, it's "game over, man".

Not necessarily. I think that's what we saw in game 4; that despite AlphaGo having a general advantage in terms of search space, it's still possible for the weaker of two strong-but-imperfect players to 'get lucky' and play a move that the stronger player didn't anticipate or account for.

<comment><USER33> If he didn't anticipate or account for that move, that means his search space wasn't a strict superset. Unless I'm missing something, you're essentially repeating what OP said after his "But: if your opponent isn't a god, it's likely that his search space is NOT the same as yours.".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Four components:

Learning (viewing millions of professional game moves).

Experience (playing different versions of itself)

Intuition (ability to accurately estimate the value of a board)

Imagination (evaluating a series of "what if?" scenarios using Monte Carlo Tree Search)

I think the significant thing about AlphaGo is that apart from some hand- crafting in the Monte Carlo Tree Search routines, this is all general purpose programming.

It may only be baby-steps, but it does feel like a genuine step towards true (general) AI.

<comment><USER17> > Learning (viewing millions of professional game moves)

According to the last press conference, it was apparently strong amateur games from the internet that it used to train with. Afterwards, it just played itself, as you mentioned.

<comment><USER35> Yes, that was surprising to me as well. It seems unfair to not give it access to the thousands of years of knowledge in the go community, though even more impressive that it still plays so well.

<comment><USER36> I think self play games would be an even better source for learning because they are at 9p level, not amateur.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> While what the AlphaGo team has accomplished is nothing short of amazing, I'm not sure if everyone's thinking about this in the right context. While playing there's a "super computer" behind the scenes with these specs 1,920 CPUs and 280 GPUs [0]. Then consider all the machines used to train this neural net. I'd say Sedol's brain is pretty freaking powerful. Also, with that much computing power I would expect AlphaGo to win with the right team and the right approach to solving the problem. It would be very interesting to change the rules and limit the processing power of the computer playing a human.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo)

<comment><USER38> You can make AlphaGo stronger by adding machines, you can't make Sedol stronger by gluing more gray matter in his brain (yet I guess). So yea, efficiency is nice but so is scalability, and that's why this is exciting.

Also in a few years AlphaGo could be running on your cellphone. The chess AI Stockfish runs on an iphone today, and cellphones from what I could find online, uses less power than the brain (brain is roughly 20W, iphone has 1.4Wh battery which even if stockfish drains in 1 hour, is still 1W of power consumption)

Give it a few years and we'll all be saying "of course computers can play Go, but at least they can't <Insert task humans are still good at>"

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Guys, this is fantastic, but lets not forget: What "shows how capable the human brain actually is," is: 1) The human brain invented Go to begin with 2) The long and celebrated history of Go 3) The human brain made DeepMind 4) The human brain finds value and beauty in all of this, which no machine would

<comment><USER40> We will always win at love and free will /s

<comment><USER41> Robots will never feel emotions, that's what separates us from animals and robots. /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Does anyone else find it funny that the Game 4 in which Lee Sedol won got the most upvotes on Hacker News? We're still firmly with team human it seems :P

<comment><USER43> I think your reasoning is flawed. Imagine Lee Sedol won the first three matches and AlphaGo the fourth. I think that news would have more upvotes than the former three matches.

The outcome was a surprise and therefore gathered more attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> AlphaGo was strong enough to survive a mistake, not knowing a known tesuji, and still claw back to win by a couple of points. I wonder wonder that means in terms of handicap, maybe it is a stone stronger than Sedol?

</comment><comment><USER44> I tried to learn Go a decade ago. After spending some time on it, I came to the conclusion that it's just not an enjoyable game for me. Here's why:

As you can see in this match, games are often won and lost by just a few points (1% of the whole territory). So, not only do you have to count territory precisely at the end, but throughout the game, and this isn't easy to do in your head.

Maybe if you are an autistic accountant, that's fun, but not for me. If I have to play a strategic board game, it will be good old chess. And now that computers are finally beating people at both, there is no longer any need to look at Go as some kind of mythical last refuge of humanity.

<comment><USER45> > So, not only do you have to count territory precisely at the end, but > throughout the game, and this isn't easy to do in your head.

You don't need to count - you can just play to take as many points as you can.

> Maybe if you are an autistic accountant, that's fun, but not for me. If I > have to play a strategic board game, it will be good old chess.

I find it's the opposite. In chess you have to play with constant vigilance, because a single blunder decides the game - even at grandmaster level, something like 60% of games are decided by blunders. In go you can play much more casually, you can take some risks, because a mistake costs one or two points but it doesn't snowball much. So not every move has to be perfect; it's much more possible to recover from mistakes.

<comment><USER44> > You don't need to count - you can just play to take as many points as you > can.

You don't have to take my word for it, since I never got past beginner level, but I know there is a consensus among the experts on this matter:

"""

> Also, do players actively count territories of their and their opponents > territories during the game (does this differ in a 9x9 vs 19x19 game)?

Yes, skilled players actively count territories frequently as they play. This includes making estimates for areas that aren't completely settled yet. In a serious game with enough time, skilled players will usually re-count the board every dozen or so moves. This is useful because it informs you whether you need to play risky and invade or reduce, or whether a peaceful, straightforward development strategy is enough. This doesn't differ too much depending on the board size, but on smaller board sizes there is a lot less to count, obviously. :)

"""

<comment><USER45> I know from direct personal experience that you can have fun games, and even be reasonably competitive at the university-club-level, without ever explicitly counting points in your head.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Google improved the outcome by putting in large amounts of processing power. What happens, if humans would do the same?

Instead of just Lee Sedol, how about putting the top 10 Go players in a room vs. AlphaGo? Would the chance to win increase?

Maybe we find out, that 3 top go players vs. AI is the optimal way and adding more humans decreases the odds to win the match?

This would lead to following question: Why does AI improve, if we add more processing power while adding more human brainpower decreases their overall power?

Maybe we find out, that 3 good developers working on a project are optimal and more decrease the chance of success?

<comment><USER47> With multiple humans, the co-ordination and communication would dominate.

Do you think the humans would win at Twitch Plays AlphaGo ?

<comment><USER48> Knowing Google, it would be a good promotion to have a Youtube Plays AlphaGo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> What's needed to use programs like AlphaGo to enhance human enjoyment of Go (and other games like chess where i have more experience)? I'm more interested in this than in the "man vs. machine" narrative.

Ideally we could take AlphaGo and produce an algo that can smoothly vary its playing proficiency as a human opponent increases in skill. The problem I've seen in chess computers is that setting them to "amateur" results in 3-4 grandmaster-perfect moves followed by a colossal blunder to enable the human opponent to catch up.

Ideally you could use a computer opponent as an always-available, continuously adapting challenger to train hard against all the time.

<comment><USER50> Nothing! This is already very much a "thing" in the Go community. Bots like GNU Go, CrazyStone, and Zen are all running under multiple accounts on most of the popular online Go servers (KGS, etc). There are enough bots of differing age and ability that one can either hop up a chain of different bots or try to configure a strong bot into a weak configuration. The GNU Go bot is also downloadable free software and is frequently integrated into, eg, mobile apps (it is, however, old and not as strong as other bots, I think around 6k level). The game of Go also has a wonderful and essential handicap system to allow players (human or bots) of differing abilities (within a reasonable range; eg not possible for a novice to play an even game against Lee Sedol even with 9 stones).

As far as I can tell the vast majority of amateur players play against bots online and review games to improve their skills. It would be nice if it was easier to select a bot with a given skill rating, but you can figure this out pretty easily by playing some games or reading up on bots. Playing against a skilled human who cares about your advancement is still the best way to advance though, in my opinion. Getting good feedback on your mistakes and style of play is extremely helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> One interesting thing happened to me: I got to the game before knowing which side was which color or the result, and I could tell which one was the computer, an exercise I hadn't tried with the previous games.

</comment><comment><USER52> I've gone from thinking "it will be impressive if AlphaGo wins a game in this series" to "wow, it's pretty impressive that Sedol took a game off AlphaGo." Craziness.

</comment><comment><USER53> I question how much of it's success is down to the AI/understanding the game/outplaying the opponent vs. simple culled brute force. Especially when they can throw Google level computing power at it and they have mentioned using heat maps and looking at move sets.

It could be argued that it's only AI when it understand the game rules and plays to them without iterating random choices until it finds a hit. Machine learning would be between the two, but still not what many would consider true AI.

<comment><USER54> I played chess instead of go, but I think they are similar enough ...

When you play, you consider a few possible movements, and a few possible responses of the other player, and in each case a few possible response of you, and ... I think amateur players like me consider only 3 or 4 levels (unless it's some easy but interesting situation like a multiple capture chain) but professional players consider much deeper trees. So humans also iterate randomly, but usually we prune the tree more aggressively for the time and memory constrains of the current implementation.

Unless you are Capablanca :). There is a famous fake quote from Capablanca that says "I see only one move ahead, but it is always the correct one." It's probably fake, but it's funny. More info and similar quotes: [http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/movesahead.html](http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/movesahead.html)

<comment><USER53> You are correct, but you are playing the game. You see and process the possibilities based on your understanding of the chess ruleset.

With machine learning with brute force you are simply trying X possibilities until something sticks and gives a high % of win state. That's different to playing the game using knowledge of the ruleset, even though, most of the time, the end result is the same.

This is what killed AI research in the 80s. That moment when everyone collectively saw they were simply working on a more powerful culled brute force (pruned tree as you call it) when they all thought it was true AI.

True AI is hard. The required computational resources are immense even for something simple. Take a Bishop on a chess board. How would you tell an AI the ruleset that the Bishop moves diagonally only? It must first understand what it is looking at, then what diagonally means, then what diagonally means in this particular context. All with nodes of pattern matches and an input stream.

I feel these young guns are falling into the same trap of calling machine learning AI without the benefit of experience an older researcher would have, having been through this situation before.

<comment><USER36> Actually, teaching AlphaGo the rules was easy. And what you call brute force is in fact intuition based search. It learns to guess by intuition (policy net) what moves to try and to give up (value net) the bad ones. It's far from brute search, and that's why AlphaGo is so much better than the other Go software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Anybody knows the music playing in the background?

-EDIT- Thats what Shazaam was able to recognize Hit Me! - Dreamliner - [https://soundcloud.com/hit-me-music-production/dreamliner](https://soundcloud.com/hit-me-music-production/dreamliner)

<comment><USER56> There's also Somnium - Bright Future somewhere in there.

<comment><USER56> Coldplay - Adventure Of A Lifetime

Also in the mix, just came up in shuffle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mikhail-g-kan Yann Lecun commented AlphaGo regarding General AI:

[https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun/posts/10153426023477143](https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun/posts/10153426023477143)

in short - we are at least 1 big step before creating human-level AI

</comment><comment><USER57> The game is amazingly close though.

<comment><USER58> I wish they counted it. Was curious to see how that works.

<comment><USER17> Here's a tutorial.

[http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/count.html](http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/count.html)

The whole series isn't bad if you're interested in other aspects of the game.

<comment><USER58> They would have counted with the Chinese method which is different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Would it be conceivable that similar type of AI can deploy and manage unmanned military vehicles, e.g. unmanned drones and tanks, and monitor battle progress (assuming that the other side is managed by human)? It wouldn't necessarily be turn-based, but constantly evaluating its moves against changing environment outside its control and reach its objective? I think such future is conceivable and scary at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER60> note that form whomever is interested reddit will do an AMA with all the various pro commentators this Saturday it seems, check r/baduk for more information

[https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments/4ai8e8/what_do_i_nee...](https://www.reddit.com/r/baduk/comments/4ai8e8/what_do_i_need_to_know_about_setting_up_the_ama_w/)

</comment><comment><USER61> Excuse my most probably naive approach at this but aren't such games very unfair at this point? AlphaGo has been trained with data provided by humans while Lee Sedol played against an AI opponent of such calibre for the first time, no? Is it a false assumption that with the right training humans will take the upper hand again?

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm curious, if these machines can consistently beat 9-dan players like this, is there talk of creating a 10-dan level?

<comment><USER63> You can just have the ELO score, which is the basis for assigning dan levels: [http://www.goratings.org/](http://www.goratings.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> It was very close though. Lee Sedol resigned in the yose after noticing he was behind by no more than a moku.

</comment><comment><USER65> I wonder what factors of game play create different advantages. For example, if per-turn time limits are below some threshold, whether humans would be at an advantage. It would certainly make for an interesting game.

</comment><comment><USER66> Next challenge: Can AlphaGo beat 10 or 100 humans playing together against it?

</comment><comment><USER67> I've heard that in Chess, there are specific strategies that are effective against computers, but not against humans. Is this the case, and is it possible to do anything similar in Go?

<comment><USER68> This was the case many years ago because of limited search depth and simple evaluation heuristics. For example, chess engines used to be known to be overly attached to material; piece sacrifices for long-term compensation used to confuse them.

Those problems have since gone away. Anti-chess-computer tactics are dead. A human would be very happy to play a modern chess engine to a draw, and winning is not even in the discussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> When it comes to competitive gaming, Koreans _were_ Gods, and now AI has come to top them.

Before we realize it, we will hear Google's StarCraft 2/3 bot beating the Korean World Champion.

</comment><comment><USER70> Does anyone have any suggested ways to learn the algorithmic techniques alphago uses? I've heard monte carlo tree search, and neural nets both mentioned

</comment><comment><USER71> Has anyone found the 15 minute summary for match 5? They had them for the first 4 matches. Really great stuff.

</comment><comment><USER72> Could anyone suggest a good introduction to the rules and basic strategies of this game?

<comment><USER73> [https://online-go.com/learn-to-play-go](https://online-go.com/learn-to-play- go)

May need an account, but registration takes 5 seconds (you just type in your desired username and password). It puts you through 10 simple lessons and then lets you play a really easy computer opponent.

<comment><USER72> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Shouldn't Lee have had the opportunity to train 1 year against this AI before the competition?

training (Human vs Human) not the same as (Human vs Algorithm) or (Algorithm vs Algorithm)

</comment><comment><USER75> Is it just me or is it really lame that Google isn't going to pay Lee?

From the article:

> Lee was competing for a $1 million prize put up by Google, but DeepMind's > victory means it will be donated to charity.

So Lee provides Google knowledge that only he is capable of providing due to his extreme skill in the game and Google won't even pay him?

<comment><USER76> He's getting $170,000, $150k for playing the 5 matches, and $20k for winning match 4.

<comment><USER75> Ah. I wish they included that in the article.

I'm all for open source and unleashing Skynet, but I was concerned someone as important and skilled as Lee will be to improving AI was going to go unpaid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> What I'm finding terrifying is that we compare best players of entire human population to machine. Even if machine is only barely on the same level, honestly, 99.9% of people probably wouldn't stood a chance against it, no matter how hard they would be trying. Those professional players are best of best.

Now compare that level of AI with average person. Go game might not be directly applicable to our lives, but it's only a demonstration. And it's replicable as easy as copy'n'paste, compare that to amount of time, money and efforts required to grow and train a human.

That future where not only drivers and factory workers are replaced by robots, but anyone who's not doing extremely intellectual work, is getting closer. Factory robot is not that cheap, it requires manipulators, repairs. But cheap office work does not require anything physical, it's replicable extremely fast and gonna cost very low. It's exciting and terrifying feature. It's not going to look well with current capitalistic economical model.</comment>


Hacker School Winter 2013 Applications are Open - <AUTHOR> https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/10-winter-2013-applications-open

<comment><USER2> I was in Hacker School's first batch, batch[0]. It was awesome. I was brought into the idea when my friend Dave Albert reached out to me. I met Dave through the hacker culture in NYC.

There was 6 of us in a small room, all working on things and talking about what inspired us. I had some things I was working on at home and loved the idea of working on them with a bunch of other hackers around. I don't personally like coworking spaces, but I thought the term "school" would mean something quite different, something more compatible with my goal of writing a bunch of open source.

Everyone could use their time however they wanted. The basic premise was to see what happens when you put a bunch of people, who love programming, in a room together. Do they sit there? Do they pull out SICP and get to work? What happens?

I used my time there to work on building Brubeck and I also built the demo projects most people use to learn Brubeck. I learned a ton just discussing the system with the other people there, but I learned the most when I would just listen to what other folks were thinking about. Everyone ended up building a huge amount of stuff and we improved each other's work by sharing it, picking it apart, etc.

We come to HN for a particular reason. We're looking for like-minded folks. The word "Hacker" is significant. It is a beacon for us. Hacker School knows this and takes on the challenge of being another beacon, and they do it well.

I have been a reader of PG's essays for 9 or so years and found the culture of Hacker School to reflect the same ideas. They understand the value of doing things simply because it would be neat. They know what it's like to be let down by a typical education experience. Hacker School is what they're doing about it.

I wholeheartedly recommend anyone with a passion for learning and technology to consider applying. What you learn is up to you and your passions, but Hacker School is the environment you've been looking to lose yourself in. That's why it exists!

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a bummer that they don't do the interviews/final answers until after the first couple weeks of January.

I'd love to take a semester off and do this, but since there's no guarantee I'd get into Hacker School, I would want to have my usual classes to fall back on, and the payment for that is due the first week of January. If I did get into Hacker School, I'd rather not drop the university classes I'll already have paid for.

Maybe this summer the timing will work out better. I'm sure I could learn more in three months there than I ever would here :I

<comment><USER4> (Hacker School cofounder here)

Please apply anyway, and include a note that you need an early admissions decision :) We'll do our best to get you a final answer before the first week of January (and if it turns out we can't, we'll let you know before then, too).

<comment><USER3> Ah, great! Thanks for letting me know. I went ahead and sent in my application a few minutes ago :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Alum from the third batch here. In the hopes that I can convince someone else to apply, my story:

I applied to hacker school, on a whim, while I was working on a php app at an advertising company in Boston. I didn't think I would get in, and I hadn't made any plans to support spending three months in NY. When I got in, I decided to drop everything, and left a month later on the dot. It may have been the best decision of my life to date.

Going in, I was a programmer, but I wasn't very good. Hacker school was so transformative, so incredibly valuable that three months later I was accepting an offer at Stripe, where I am now.

The strange thing is - the value doesn't come from lectures, or workshops, or anything like that. Hacker school is valuable because it gives you the space to grow into your full potential on your own. Just having three months where I could dabble and play in the company of similarly-minded people was the best thing for me, and it's hard to overstate how much I learned.

Do it! Apply! I don't know of a better way to spend three months.

</comment><comment><USER6> I love Hacker School. It significantly changed the trajectory of my life. I barely didn't go, but in the end I did and as a result met some of the smartest people that were incredibly passionate about technology. Try and apply - they're incredibly warm, open people and a pleasure to talk to in any case.

<comment><USER7> Hi there, this is going to be off topic but I couldn't find if there was a way to message people on here

The rewindhn.com that front-paged a while back is showing this page:

        uWSGI Error

        Python application not found

is this a temporary thing or is the site shut down?

does this have anything to do with the provider? (I recall you were using hetzner)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm seriously considering applying, but I'd have to leave a full time job in order to do so. What kind of job placement rate is there post"grad"? Average salary?

At my current position I'm being paid well but I don't feel like I'm improving at all as a programmer. This would be a huge risk for me, but I feel like I'd be better prepared for the future.

Any alums leave a job to go to hacker school? What was your experience like?

<comment><USER9> I pretty much left my programming job to come to HS. As i'm in the current batch, i'm entering the nob market around now. While I don't know about average salary or job placement rates, if you are a professional programmer before hacker school you'll only be a much better professional programmer after hacker school, and that means it won't be too difficult to get a job.

But Hacker School is not a job placement program. It is a place for people who love programming to come to become better at their craft. That this results in increase job opportunities afterwards is often a beneficial side effect, but not the primary motivator for people to come here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love the idea of HackerSchool and would love to take part at some point in my life. The only thing that gives me pause is that I've heard the application process heavily emphasizes and selects based on github code and open source contributions vs. other accomplishments. Can anyone verify if this is or isn't the case?

Personally, I love oss and have always planned to get more involved. That's one of the primary reasons I'm interested in trying HackerSchool. But so far in my hacker career I've focused much more on achieving financial stability and freedom, which means that while I've produced a lot of interesting code across many domains and studied a decent variety of languages and technologies, the majority of my work has either been for pay or on personal projects that have (so far unsuccessfully) been aimed at least to some extent at turning a profit.

Just wondering if there would be a place for someone like me at HackerSchool, or if I'd have to spend some time beefing up my github first to be considered.

<comment><USER11> Current student here. There's quite an even mix of backgrounds: some people came in with very little up on github, some with lots. Give it a whack -- I see no reason you'd make a poor candidate, or hurt your chances for the future by applying now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I know who would be perfect for this, except she is still in college so she would need to drop a semester to do this instead.

Do you have any pitch concerning this?

I assume the summer one doesn't conflict with college, but at those times people usually go for internships.

<comment><USER9> Disclaimer: I am in the current batch.

I don't know if there is a 'pitch' concerning pausing college for a semester. I think the same thing applies as for those people (like me) who quit their programming jobs to come to hacker school:

I've learned more in the last 2 months than I have in the last year at my job. Pair programming with people who are better than you in a specific skill is an incredible way to learn. If you love programming and want to become a better programmer by spending time doing what you love with other people who are driven by the same passions, come to hacker school. You have found your space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like this idea so much. Any plans to scale up the Hacker School? In particular, it would be awesome if there was more Hacker Schools in different locations.

<comment><USER4> Thanks!

We might expand someday, but we're still far from perfect with only one location, and we want to stay focused on making Hacker School in New York the best it can be before expanding to more locations.

In the meantime, we've had good success with people moving to New York for Hacker School. About 20% of our past two batches have come from outside the US, and the majority of our last couple batches moved to New York for the batch.

<comment> barry-cotter Hi, how much trouble have non-US people had getting (US) jobs afterwards? I know you support yourselves by acting as recruiters and it seems likely that it would be really hard for people without permanent residence to get visas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is Hacker school in some way affiliated/linked to YC ? The homepage design looks very close to ycombinator's.

<comment><USER4> We were YC S10, and yes, we copied YC's site design significantly (we acknowledge this on our FAQ: <https://www.hackerschool.com/faq>).

<comment><USER14> ok thx.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Sean-Der If you are on the edge about applying, I heavily encourage you to apply!

HackerSchool changed my life drastically on multiple levels. The intellectually challenging atmosphere made me a better person all around, not just programming wise.

</comment><comment><USER15> What level of programming knowledge do you prefer incoming students to have? I see a couple testimonials that mention people new to programming, but your code requests and FAQ lead me to believe that's a rare exception nowadays...

<comment><USER16> Hey there, I did Hacker School this past summer. I was one of the most beginner-level programmers in the beginning. I never opened my terminal, never heard of functional programming, and didn't even know how html and css worked. I was a noob. The only things I could do were solve project euler math problems, which was enough to know I loved programming and wanted to commit to improving. Despite my initial skill level, I found a full-time job shortly afterward as a developer.

TLDR: if you can code fizzbuzz and know you love programming, you're good enough to apply. :)

<comment><USER17> Can you share a bit of information about what the application/interview process was like? I'm sort of in the same position, and I'm very interested in applying for summer or winter 13.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm currently a CS student and kind of like the idea of doing Hacker School for Summer 2013 or 2014, but could never afford the living expenses. Why do you only do scholarships for Women?

<comment><USER19> I was wondering the same thing. I don't see why not being a woman should disqualify you from financial aid.

<comment><USER20> (batch[1] alum, male)

it's about promoting the program for females, to help balance the gender divide in programming. In my batch, there was no scholarship yet, and we had no females. Same for batch[0]. batch[1] didn't have the scholarships and they had just one female. Since starting the scholarships, the program has been just under half female, which has been extremely beneficial to hackerschool culture.

The scholarships do help fix the gender divide, and honestly, I think that's very important, for both females AND males. I don't think it's acknowledged widely enough the relationship between gender diversity and happiness in a working environment. I would be very, very surprised if scholarly research didn't reveal that all-male or mostly-male workplaces lead to unhappy males. As a CE undergrad, I had almost no female classmates. A few years out of graduation, I've come to the conclusion that having no females in my program contributed to the severe depression that I experienced as an undergrad. Part of fixing that is making it clear that we want females to be a part of our community, and part of it is actually making sure that can happen. The scholarships are a good thing, even for the guys that don't qualify. As an alum, I support the scholarships for female applicants, and can testify to the positive impact they've had on our little community.

<comment><USER21> It's not just about happiness, but also productivity, diversity of thought, ideas and working styles, having a well-rounded team, and all that jazz. Though I'm sure happiness comes into it, too.

I'm female, and half the reason I'm tempted to apply is the scholarship. I find that a little disquieting, and I can't quite put my finger on why. Unfortunately, the scholarship is not enough for me to give up my (non- programming, but in technology) day job and move across the country, so it's something of a moot point. I'd love to do Hacker School, it's definitely a direction I'd really benefit from growing in, but the sort of person to whom the scholarship makes a substantial difference in applying... let's just say not every woman falls into that category.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Tiny suggestion that may not be pragmatic: since you folks advocate for Open Source Software, it'd be nice if the default tool for conducting interviews didn't rely on a closed VOIP protocol (Skype).

Maybe consider adding an option for SIP addresses on the next round of applications?

</comment><comment><USER23> Are you guys remaining at Etsy for the time being or is it moving?

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd be interested in a similar program for Design – is there such a thing?

</comment><comment><USER25> What's the average age?

<comment><USER4> We don't collect this data, but I think our range has been late-teens to late 40s, with most students in their 20s or 30s.</comment></comment>


Hackers give Anonymous a taste of their own medicine - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/121153-hackers-give-anonymous-a-taste-of-their-own-medicine <comment><USER2> This is absolutely awful reporting. They didn't "break into the document" and change the links, they just posted a version with links to their trojaned version, and got it going around on social networks competing with the original.

The "updated" bit about the "rest of Anon's leadership" is similarly wrong, although it seems they're just repeating Gizmodo's nonsense in that case. Anonymous as a whole has no "leadership" to speak of, it has no "top brass", it just has some members who are more vocal and well-known than others.

</comment><comment><USER3> Kind of surprised that there's no separately distributed sha sig for legit slowloris. If you're going to download a hacking tool, one would _think_ you're going to be careful...

</comment><comment><USER4> _Overbroad and arbitrary web takedowns by #usgov or by #anonymous -- no way to run a world_

\- Tim Berners-Lee

[https://twitter.com/#!/timberners_lee/status/160414269173800...](https://twitter.com/#!/timberners_lee/status/160414269173800960)

<comment><USER2> Your link should probably be to:

[https://twitter.com/#!/timberners_lee/status/160414269173800...](https://twitter.com/#!/timberners_lee/status/160414269173800960)

The mobile link brings up a signup page for some reason.

<comment><USER4> Wow, so many that are wrong with this link:

1) it uses a hashbang

2) i added it from the ipad, it does not work on the web

3) try clicking on the unprefixed link on an ipad: it redirects to /timberners_lee which then redirects to #!/timberners_lee, which then submits a form or sth. Clicking "back" after that brings you to "mobile.twitter.com/" instead of here

4) when you visit the non-mobinle link from a web browser (Chrome), it first loads your personal frontpage and then reloads with the actual tweet page.

All this for less than 140 precious characters. Where is the world heading to?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > it's a surprise this group has not turned on each other already.

The author must not have gotten the memo.

</comment><comment><USER6> > It is understandable that the group wishes to remain anonymous (excuse the > pun)

This is the most offensive thing in the article.</comment>


Do You Trust Larry Page? - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2015/do-you-trust-larry-page/

<comment><USER2> Very insightful article from Ben. Although the conglomerates are not in vogue at the moment several conglomerates dominate the business world: GE, Siemens, etc... Actually I see a lot of parallels between Googles maturation and say GE's. Both started with a niche product but then diversified into more complex systems as they matured.</comment>


Questions for TSA after reports of laptop and phone searches on domestic flights - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/12/tsa-surveillance-laptops-cellphones-domestic-flights <comment><USER2> I guess they didn't read Riley v California[1]. In the opinion of the SCOTUS:

> Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience. With all > they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans "the > privacies of life". The fact that technology now allows an individual to > carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less > worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought. Our answer to the > question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized > incident to an arrest is accordingly simple -- get a warrant.

Given that the SCOTUS unanimously ruled searching a phone without a warrant is unconstitutional incident to an _arrest_ , the same requirement must also hold for Terry stops and simple safety inspections.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riley_v._California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riley_v._California)

<comment><USER3> Im not sure that matters. They may make it a condition of travel; you do not have to let the TSA search your phone, but you will not be allowed to proceed into the airport without doing so.

That is what all the TSA searches have appeared like to me. Just a denial of service for maintaining a level of privacy.

<comment><USER4> This kind of argument is starting to piss me off. "You can express your freedom of speech, but not in this public park, because it's privately owned" "You can state your opinions, but not on this website, because dispite being a major communications hub on the internet, and despite advertising ourselves as a place of free expression, we actively derank, ban or erase any opinion we dislike" "You can decline the EULA, you just have to stop using our vital service" "You can maintain your privacy, but not if you want to travel" "You can buy a phone that doesn't collect metadata about you, you just have to break a $50 billion dollar lobby and manufacture your own IC. You still have the freedom of choice"

You know what, you really don't. Your rights aren't supposed to be just a legal burden to circumvent with various tricks, they're supposed to hold in all domains of public life. I want to be able to fly in a plane without having some asshole dig through my personal life. You think someone is dangerous? Check for bombs. Check for weapons. Why are they checking for beliefs? What kind of bullshit is this?

<comment><USER5> Yeah. We accept that "if you don't like it, you should just move" is a bad excuse for bad laws. But people still think they are so urbane and clever when they say "oh, if you don't like (service X), just don't use it."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article seems like it's written to be deliberately confusing.

If I understand it correctly, the TSA is not forcing anyone to unlock devices. They take the devices away for some period, but if they're securely locked, TSA won't be able to get anything from them.

However, the article drops border searches which _do_ require an unlock right into the middle of the article, then goes on to say that they have no _specific_ examples of TSA doing the same thing. This implies that they have reason to believe it's happening, but as far as I can see there's no justification for that.

The big question is: what are they doing with these things? If it's some fancy explosives sniffing (like they already do to my contact lens solution) then it's nothing interesting. If it's an electronic search if unsecured devices, that's bad. If it's an attempt to force travelers to unlock secured devices, that's horrible. The article seems to want to portray it as the last one, while only giving evidence for one of the first two.

<comment><USER7> > They take the devices away for some period, but if they're securely locked, > TSA won't be able to get anything from them.

It is well documented that there is no cell phone that cannot be unlocked.

And once it's unlocked, who knows what the real goal is. On the surface, one suspects that it's to examine its contents. But other possibilities include sideloading spyware, or even targeted viruses. Some random NGO secretary may not be the actual target, but could be the vector that allows a program to spread to one or more other targets within or without the organization.

I liked it better when this was the sort of thing that people on shortwave radio with tinfoil hats would rant about. Now it's almost weekly headlines in the NY Times, Guardian, WSJ, etc...

<comment><USER8> > It is well documented that there is no cell phone that cannot be unlocked.

Citation needed?

<comment><USER7> For iPhones: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/02/26/gover...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/02/26/government- can-access-any-apple-iphone-cellebrite/#6c3c2cb7667a)

For every other phone, Google is your friend.

<comment><USER9> So that's what's happening? The TSA takes your phone, teleports it to cellebrite who unlock and clone it in ten minutes, then they teleport it back?

<comment><USER4> Can you think of a better location to place a phone's unlocking and cloning machine than the TSA's examination office? Do they really need to teleport the phone?

<comment><USER6> It's unlikely to be a push-button machine. It's more likely to be a complicated procedure involving desoldering chips and placing components in specialized harnesses, which would be difficult to replicate at an airport.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Domestic flights? Wow.

Since this is a different agency than typically conducts (similarly intrusive and seemingly illegal) searches in the case of international flights, I wonder if they are following a common protocol? If so, who creates that?

I'm about to fly internationally for the first time in a while; anybody have any advice on how to handle my devices?

<comment><USER11> hidden partitions, and/or storing all your important data off-device are the two pieces of advice that get suggested the most.

<comment><USER12> I would strongly recommend the latter. Hidden partitions are trivial to find.

I recommend one of these:

[https://www.amazon.com/MyDigitalSSD-480GB-SuperSpeed- Portabl...](https://www.amazon.com/MyDigitalSSD-480GB-SuperSpeed-Portable- Support/dp/B00N0V4JG2/)

Keep it encrypted and in your pocket.

<comment><USER13> The bigger problem with hidden partitions is the TSA agent asks you if there is a hidden partition and then if they are able to find out they you have lied you have committed a crime.

<comment><USER14> > TSA agent asks you ... and then if they are able to find out they you have > lied you have committed a crime.

Not sure that's the case: TSA agents are not police or any other law enforcement any more than the gate agent is,and can't make arrests or anything like that. Pretty sure you can say what you like (though please, be polite!).

I once pulled out my phone to photograph the badge of an agent who was particularly obnoxious, not just to me but to others. I planned to fill out the complaint card. He freaked out, told me photography was not allowed, grabbed me by the arm and called for the cop. The cop came over and told him in no uncertain terms to let go of me, that photography is fine, asked me if I got a clear photo and made sure I got a photo of the badge. And handed me a complaint form. I assume he already knew that the TSA guy was a jerk.

<comment><USER15> > TSA agents are not police or any other law enforcement any more than the > gate agent is,and can't make arrests or anything like that. Pretty sure you > can say what you like (though please, be polite!).

Aren't TSA agents government, federal, employees?

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001?qt- us_code_t...](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001?qt- us_code_temp_noupdates=0#qt-us_code_temp_noupdates)

> Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within > the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the > Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—

> (1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a > material fact;

> (2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or > representation; or

> (3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain > any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > "One woman who shared her story with the ACLU told the Guardian that in the > last year, she has twice had her electronics searched while flying within > California. The 64-year-old, who works in nonprofits and requested anonymity > for fear that she could face further scrutiny from TSA, said that on one > occasion last year, TSA agents pulled her aside to pat her down multiple > times and eventually asked to see both her iPhones – a work and personal > one."

I suspect it would be very revealing which nonprofit is involved here; this kind of harassment through scrutiny is a classic tactic against progressive groups.

<comment><USER17> It's also a classic tactic against conservative groups.

[https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes- for-...](https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes-for- aggressive-scrutiny-of-conservative-groups)

<comment><USER18> Sorry, are you equating needless bureaucratic red tape in a non-profit's application for tax-exempt status to the seizure of a private citizen's phone and laptop?

<comment><USER19> Sorry, are you equating a private citizen having their phone out of their sight for 10 minutes with over a year of delays in permitting an organization to accept tax-exempt donations from thousands of citizens?

Frankly, BOTH are unreasonable and the government should not be engaging in EITHER ONE. I think there is little to be gained by debating which is "worse" \-- could we instead agree to cease doing both?

<comment><USER20> No. There are degrees of "worseness": we have a priority queue of issues that must be addressed given spare time and resources.

In that context: and individual's right to privacy and to be left alone is much much more important than any organization getting tax exempt status.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Remember the 5th Amendment applies to passwords. No law enforcement officer may EVER compel you to log in to a device with a password / pass code / unlock pattern, for any reason.

<comment><USER22> In other words, don't enable touch id or face unlock.

<comment><USER23> I'm trying to find the article now, but I recall reading that in the USA it's a lawful order to have you unlock your phone with a thumbprint, but not to unlock with a PIN code. God knows why.

Here: [https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/31/judge-rules- suspect-...](https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/31/judge-rules-suspect-can- be-required-to-unlock-phone-with-fingerprint/)

Unsure about federal application, actually. We as country need to get our shit together regarding device privacy. You should need a warrant to look at a phone, laptop, whatever, with or without a password. The security of the device should be meaningless.

As for me, I'm grateful that I have the resources to push back should this ever happen to me, jailtime or included. That's a luxury probably very few Americans can realistically afford (seeing as they can just throw you in jail for 48 hours).

<comment><USER24> > I recall reading that in the USA it's a lawful order to have you unlock your > phone with a thumbprint, but not to unlock with a PIN code. God knows why.

I believe the rationale was that they can't ask you to incriminate yourself (give up your passcode), but you don't have to say anything for them to force you to give your fingerprint.

<comment><USER21> My understanding is that it stemmed from them being able to compel you to take your fingerprints. In the old days you'd put your fingers in ink then put them on paper so they could record your fingerprint. I guess a judge ruled that putting your thumb on your phone isn't substantially different than that.

That said, you shouldn't ever rely solely on biometrics. In addition to the legal reason, an adversary could also unlock your phone if you were unconscious / etc using your thumb.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's possible the TSA will claim that taking a device for some amount of time and giving it back doesn't qualify as a (4th amendment) search.

However, from a security perspective it would be awful if they could disappear with your device whenever they wanted - that certainly makes me uncomfortable.

<comment><USER26> >> _It 's possible the TSA will claim that taking a device for some amount of time and giving it back doesn't qualify as a (4th amendment) search._

Not likely to work: "We just want to search your house for 30 minutes" or "you can have your document back after we photocopy it, so no warrant needed."

The idea is that they cannot do certain things without a warrant.

<comment><USER19> I think the fear is that the TSA will deny having searched the phone and the complaintant will have not way of proving that they did.

<comment><USER27> Having the system have an ability to log all accesses after switching on get past this problem. As the logs will be proof the system was searched while not in your hands.

<comment><USER19> Does the system have such an ability?

I can't exactly go re-write iOS or Android (technically, I suppose I _could_ do the latter) in order to add this feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Surveillance Self-Defense [https://ssd.eff.org/](https://ssd.eff.org/)

</comment><comment><USER29> If I bring any personal equipment when I travel it's a "burner". I have a Chromebook running Debian that never has anything on it I care about (and only access personal stuff remotely via SSH, using a PGP key on a YubiKey). I carry an old phone, again with nothing on it I care about. Both devices are encrypted and powered off through security (and left off as much as possible when at the airport in general).

The most important characteristic of these devices is that I'm 100% happy to just walk away from them (and there are no easily recovered credentials for any "cloud based" services I use).

If I'm traveling for work (and have equipment that belongs to my employer with me), I am equally happy to walk away from those devices (though I'll also leave the contact info for my company's lawyer).

</comment><comment><USER30> Who here thought this was eventually going to happen for domestic flights after this started happening on international flights?

</comment><comment><USER31> Yet another reason to not fly through the US

</comment><comment><USER32> The number of searches has increased quite a bit from 2016 to 2017

[https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp- rele...](https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases- updated-border-search-electronic-device-directive-and)

</comment><comment><USER33> No special knowledge, but willing to bet they are doing this on the basis of a specific threat. Much theatre, hoping it gets press, and intended as a deterrent based on information they've got they are concerned about. Otherwise its a lot of work for nothing.

</comment><comment><USER34> I wonder if they're imaging the device for later analysis.

I suspect they're not installing implants but it would make me nervous all the same about using that device in the future...

</comment><comment><USER35> idea: scrub all data and accounts from your electronics before flying.

leave your phone unlocked, but primed with a goatse booby trap so that the agents get an unpleasant surprise that's totally legal and comes with total deniability -- hey, you just loved goatse so that's why it's on your phone and laptop.

if the agent is offended, perhaps they should have minded their own fucking business.

<comment><USER26> _> > so that the agents get an unpleasant surprise_

YOU will get the surprise: if you're a US citizen they cannot deny you entry to the USA but they can make your life miserable by searching and delaying you every single time.

If you're not a US citizen and try to be a "smartass," they have all the power to deny you entry in the USA. No appeals.

<comment><USER35> why would i get a surprise? i'm just an innocent citizen who loves goatse. there's no reason to single me out for harassment -- or if there IS, there's a lawsuit ready to go

<comment><USER26> Of course you are. And they're just doing their job, they _suspect_ you might try something. Just suspect, so to protect and to serve they have to check you, every single time. Better safe than sorry.

A lawsuit for being searched more carefully? Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If office issued electronic devices (which presumably have to undergo routine organization-specific scrutiny, and may contain non-public info) are snatched by the TSA for random sniffing, why can't an organization sue the TSA for compromising security?

</comment><comment><USER37> They can have my device if necessary, however I will not give them the passcode without torture. They can add it to the pile.

<comment><USER38> They can't _have_ my device without a warrant. I'm not comfortable with them even taking it out of my sight or connecting it to anything. This is an agency that absolutely cannot be trusted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> A devil's advocate argument, for people to have something explicit to rebut here:

One of the guises state police operate under in America is the "highway patrol"—a force that searches for terrorists and drug trafficking and the like.

And presumably, air travel is a privilege, not a right, just like driving a car is. (Or _is_ it? Taking _public_ transit is a right that can't be denied to someone unless they explicitly break a rule of the system. But airports are private companies...)

So, given that, is there a _legal_ reason that there is no "airway patrol"?

I'm not suggesting they have the powers of random search & seizure that the TSA seems to have, mind you. But should there be state police that are stationed at airports, who search people when they have probable cause?

<comment><USER10> > Presumably, air travel is a privilege, not a right, just like driving a car > is.

Freedom of movement is a privilege, not a right? What can you possibly be talking about?

Did I miss a memo? The United States (and other common law societies) have a long history of enshrining freedom of movement as a fundamental right.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_United_States_law)

Also, be reminded that the USA voted in favor of the UDHR, which reads in part:

* a citizen of a state in which that citizen is present has the liberty to travel, reside in, and/or work in any part of the state where one pleases within the limits of respect for the liberty and rights of others

and

* and that a citizen also has the right to leave any country, including his or her own, and to return to his or her country at any time.

<comment><USER39> Freedom of movement no more guarantees your right to purchase a ticket aboard a _private, commercial_ flight, than freedom of speech guarantees your right to post to a _private, commercial_ forum.

What freedom of movement _does_ guarantee, to be clear, is that you're:

1\. allowed to own your own plane;

4\. allowed to fly said plane over pretty much any American airspace, other than specific little zones cordoned off by the military;

2\. allowed to have your own airfield to launch and land your plane;

3\. allowed to use the airfield of any American airport to launch/land your plane (at least in an emergency.)

With your _own_ plane—just like with your _own_ car—you have freedom of movement in the US.

<comment><USER40> > Freedom of movement no more guarantees your right to purchase a ticket > aboard a private, commercial flight, than freedom of speech guarantees your > right to post to a private, commercial forum.

It is the government that prevents you from flying on the private commercial airline. Not the airline owner. If the government was preventing people from posting certain messages on private commercial form, that would certainly be a violation of the First Amendment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I am TOTALLY ok with TSA reading my last text messages before I go on a flight.

Those last few texts someone sends before committing a terrorist action, could send an extremely strong signal to authorities and possibly prevent a disaster.

If the extra security results in a strange TSA agent getting to enjoy some surprise dick pics, well that's the price of freedom Jerry.

<comment><USER42> >If the extra security results in a strange TSA agent getting to enjoy some surprise dick pics, well that's the price of freedom Jerry.

I wouldn't say that someone has 'freedom' if they're being forced to possibly have their body visibly exposed to strangers against their will.

<comment><USER43> isn't that what those scanners do lol?

<comment><USER42> They highlight where there are extraneous objects on one's body, but they do not reveal what's underneath your clothes. The OP that I responded to explicitly states s/he would be fine with TSA agents ruffling through your most recent messages on your phone, and that it should be OK for them to see nude photos of yourself that you may have just sent someone.

There's a big difference between going, "Hey, the computer put a red square on the left thigh of a generic outline of a human, it suggests we should look there to see if you have anything," and, "Hmm, let's see what Johnny sent Sally yesterday. Oh look, his dick! And this lady who isn't even traveling with him sent him six pictures of her breasts!"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Canvas Pinball - <AUTHOR> http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Graphics/CanvasPinball/default.html

<comment><USER2> The only thing I miss from the 95-XP days is Space Cadet Pinball. Oh well, new iPad next week and Pinball HD will totally make up for it

<comment><USER3> I'd forgotten about Pinball. Thanks for a nice 10 minute break!</comment></comment>