They are playing with a 7.5 point komi [1], and so a game cannot end in a tie. Doesn't that mean that there is no distinction between winning and not losing?
[1] komi is a number of points that is added to white's score to compensate for the disadvantage of moving second. When a non-integer komi is used, such as in this match, you cannot have a tie because scoring on the board is always integral.
There really isn't, from the point of view of AlphaGo. But for someone playing Go (or any game), it's a hint that perhaps one should focus on things that can go wrong more than furthering your own aggressive plan.
It's certainly a feature of the best Magic: the Gathering pros, for example - their play is marked by the cards they play around, even when seemingly far ahead.
interesting that "not losing" (avoiding mistakes that lead to "blowing up") also seems to be common philosophy shared among very successful investors of wildly differing styles, who are playing another sort of game in the markets
Yeah, isn't Lee Sedol playing with the same objective? It sounds like people are implying he's trying to thrash the AI. Or do they mean he can't help but have such an objective, subconsciously?
The issue is more that humans are not quite so confident of their positions as AlphaGo sometimes can be. If you are 100% sure that you're ahead by 1.5 points, you would play very differently than if you're ahead by 1.5 plus or minus five.
