People have been trying to program computers to play Go since about 1969. From 1984 onwards there have been regular competitions to see who can write the strongest program.
Last year, "Deep Blue", a chess program developed by IBM, beat Kasparov, the world chess champion. Go is far harder to program well than chess. The best Go program can be beaten by a moderate amateur player. Go programming is interesting because a good program must rely more on genuine AI techniques than on brute-force searching as used by chess programs. You can learn more about Go at the British Go Association site, http://www.britgo.org, and about computer Go at Mick Reiss's site, http://www.reiss.demon.co.uk/webgo/compgo.htm.
The best known of these is the Ing Cup. This includes a prize of over one million US dollars for the first program to beat a newly-qualified Taiwanese professional Go player, and smaller prizes for beating such a player with handicaps of various sizes. The other major computer Goe tournament is the FOST (Fusion Of Science and Technology) cup, which is always held in Japan.
Mr. Ing was a Taiwanese businessman, who died last year. He worked hard to promote Go, and set up the funding for the annual Ing Cup. This is now funded from The ING Foundation. He preferred the spelling "Goe" rather than the more usual "Go".
The Ing Foundation provides entrants with their travel expenses to the venue of the Ing cup, and provides prize money. It is left to the hosting organisation to provide a venue, and incidental expenses such as meals for the entrants.
In 1998, the Ing Cup is due to be held in England. The British Go Association will oversee it, but is unable to assist with expenses.
The current world champion is a retired chemistry professor from China. The Japanese have suprisingly done rather badly in these competitions, despite a Go programming effort as part of the government-funded "fifth generation project".
This year has seen the emergence of programs written by teams rather than by individuals. The winner of the 1998 FOST Cup, and two of the other strong programs, rely on a combination of programming and HGo-playing skills.
However, the "Artificial Intelligence" aspects of the competition have attracted media interest. The following have already expressed their intention of covering the event:
The journalists are unlikely to attend in person, though I shall try to persuade them to do so, as this will give them an opportunity to talk to the programmers and discuss the problems involved. I will send them an account and discussion of the event once it is over, which they will use for their articles.
The final match, between the winning program and a trainee professional player, will be the best opportunity for a photocall, and I shall encourage the press to take advantage of this. Local papers are likely to use this.
Last updated: 1998-09-24.
If you have any comments, please email the webmaster.