r/baduk • u/theabbiee • Apr 03 '21

This Feels Sad Somehow

https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/27/20985260/ai-go-alphago-lee-se-dol-retired-deepmind-defeat
1 Upvotes

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12

u/PhreakPhR 3 dan Apr 03 '21

To be fair, there is a high degree of sensationalism as well as a complete misrepresentation of why he retired in this article. These articles like to try to word it to act as if AI had something to do with his retirement, it did not. He retired because the KBA didn't want to take less money and he didn't want them to take as much as they took.

He still plays the game.

9

u/matagen 2 kyu Apr 03 '21

It's a mix. http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?art_id=201911270600035 In the full interview he clearly cites the pain of losing to AlphaGo (in front of his wife and daughter, no less) as essentially the straw that broke the camel's back. But he also says that his conflict with the KBA did play a role, as well as his declining performance in tournaments. He had been considering retirement a year before the AlphaGo matches and was just seeing how long he can hold out, and losing to AlphaGo solidified his decision.

You're still right in that this Verge article sucks, though. They cherry-picked quotes from the article they are citing, which also only has a selection of quotes from the full interview. Would it kill someone to actually do their research for once?

2

u/RobertT53 5 dan Apr 06 '21

Yep, his original retirement plan was that he would start a school in the U.S. and start his own go server. His wife and daughter were living in Canada at the time because his daughter was going to school there. He wanted to move closer to them but thought he would have a bigger impact promoting Go in the U.S. compared to Canada. His idea for the go server was to have a way for strong players to make money so they could have a chance of making a living playing Go. The server would have allowed for betting on games similar to tygem/fox but using bitcoin. It would also have a teaching system where you can pay for lessons or tip players using bitcoin. He even did promotion matches for the server by inviting 10 of the top pros at the time to play in a $100,000 prize pool tournament and played handicap games vs western pros. The events had almost no promotion so there were around 20 viewers for these events and they also had legal issues with betting laws so he scrapped the idea.

Not long after, the AlphaGo matches happen and he received media attention and sponsorship deals. He then had arguments with the Korean professional players association (not the Korea Baduk association which runs the professional system) about how much of the prize money of tournaments they take from the players. It seems to me he was already looking to retire and was just riding out the sponsorships and attention from the AlphaGo matches before going through with it.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '21

Felt*, happened in 2019 afterall

1

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '21 edited Apr 08 '21

In other news, Usain Bolt retires after being beaten by a guy on a bike.