{"id":164318,"date":"2024-02-20T11:19:01","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T10:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=164318"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:10","slug":"according-to-joao-goncalves-ai-can-destroy-the-charm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2024\/02\/20\/according-to-joao-goncalves-ai-can-destroy-the-charm\/","title":{"rendered":"According to Jo\u00e3o Gon\u00e7alves, AI can destroy the charm"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a student in Portugal, Jo\u00e3o Gon\u00e7alves played Go \u2013 \u2018sort of the chess of Asia, but more complicated\u2019. Until computers defeated the great masters. The book The Master of Go<\/em> by Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata made Gon\u00e7alves realise the game had lost its mystery for him with the advent of AI. In his research, he now hopes to make AI more human.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLeroy Verbeet<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Jo\u00e3o Gon\u00e7alves stumbled upon the game of Go when he googled complex board games. He enjoyed chess, but the way the professionals play it \u2013 \u2018competitive and fast \u2019 \u2013 took away from the charm of the game for him. He wanted something new and he found it online: Go \u2013\u2013 \u2018sort of the chess of Asia, but more complicated\u2019. Gon\u00e7alves immersed and skilled himself in the game together with his brother.<\/p>\n\t

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<\/b>Go<\/strong><\/p>\n

Go is a board game for two players with white and black stones. The board consists of 19 by 19 lines. A player may place a stone at each intersection on the board. The goal is to mark off a territory by surrounding areas on the board with stones of your own colour. The game is over when neither player wants to make another move.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Masterful amateurs<\/h2>

Not much later, South Korea wanted to make the game better known around the world. And so it happened that as a 20-year-old student, Gon\u00e7alves flew to Seoul with his brother, four years his junior, to represent Portugal at a Go championship paid for and organised by South Korea. \u201cAfter arriving at the capital, we travelled on to a small village that was home to one of the greats of the game. It was our first time in Asia and we were totally overwhelmed by the culture that was so different from Portugal.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a village surrounded by rice fields, the world\u2019s best amateurs gathered to play against the great professionals. The boards were set up alongside each other and Gon\u00e7alves took on a grandmaster five times. During the games, he drank tea with rice in it, and \u2013 as is customary in Go \u2013 each player was given an hour of thinking time. \u201cI was walking among the rice fields thinking about my next move. It was a whole new culture for me, but as soon as the match started I was fully focused on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the road that counts, not the destination<\/h2>

Gon\u00e7alves did not win a single match. \u201cOf course not\u201d, as he put it, but that\u2019s not what Go is about for him anyway. The goal is to mark off a larger territory than the opponent. If neither player wants to make another move, the game is over.\u00a0 For Gon\u00e7alves, what makes Go so fascinating is how you play the game. \u201cIt\u2019s about reflecting. If I want too much at once, I\u2019ll lose, but if I\u2019m too cautious, I also won\u2019t succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Gon\u00e7alves, Go lost its glory in 2016, when computers beat the world\u2019s best player at the time. Initially, Gon\u00e7alves did not realise this match had changed his perspective on the game. It was only when he read the book The Master of Go<\/em> by Yasunari Kawabata, which he got as a gift from his wife, that he realised it described what was experiencing. \u201cThe mystique is gone. A computer can now tell you which move is good and which is not. It\u2019s no longer about what is a beautiful move or how your way of playing is determined by who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Master of Go<\/em> is a fictional story based on an actual game of Go in 1938 where an old master of the game competed against an up-and-coming talent. The master represented tradition and the old conception of Go as a creative process, whereas the new generation approached the board game competitively and rationally. Gon\u00e7alves folded a dog-ear to mark the page where the author describes how the different perspectives collided: \u201cOne conducted the battle only to win, and there was no margin for remembering the dignity and the fragrance of Go as an art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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Lees meer<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t