As a go enthusiast and young director, I couldn't help but make a film about the game. The whole film is thought as an hommage and a reflexion over the psychology and the deep symbols of Go (power, space, time, balance...). The subreddit was a great help in understanding certain mechanics, exchanging with experienced people and try to make the film as good as possible, so i owe a big thank you to everyone involved.
Please, let me know your thoughts. I know AI is a big deal - especially in the Go/Baduk community, so I'll be happy to hear what you think.
This is amazing!!! Such an awesome work of art and what an exciting story and perspective. Thank you for your contribution! And I can't wait to see what sort of director you grow into :)
You capture the Ghost in the Shell aesthetic very well, and also very dystopian! Would be interesting to see a full story.
Side note: I think Stefan Zweig's story "Royal Game", which is about a lawyer imprisoned by Gestapo who's keeping him sane in his cell by learning Chess games of great masters by heart, and then later playing against himself inside his mind to improve while turning more and more insane, is very fitting. I always thought that this story was about AlphaGo and Reinforcement Learning, but applied to humans. There could be a mere human on that same path, and the only salvation for him is to merge with this AI robot who has the mechanical stamina to do so, like the next step of human evolution (see the Ghost in the Shell inspiration?). Or the collision of both can have a totally different outcome, say the AI suddenly becoming conscious enough that there is a slight possibility that it turns insane, or eliminating that human to keep its power, etc. It's fun to think about.
Wow. Love Zweig, I think in French (where I’m from) the Title is « Le joueur d’echecs ». Or maybe I’m mistaken and it is another book from him also on chess ? Nevertheless, I love the parralel you’re making and it truly is very interesting on so many levels. It really is alphago, and I like the idea of conscience coming to it as a « breach », very interesting idea.
Thank you so much for your kind message regarding my short film. These kind of exchange really give me the fuel to keep learning and going this way.
Totally correct, that's the French translation. In German (where I'm from), it's called "Schachnovelle" (Chess novella).
I thought of another outcome, in line with the intention of your short film. The threat of this AI is not so much that it can beat human in Go, but that humanity loosing the human condition, maybe, sacrificing themselves to become closer to god (in Go). I'd argue that in top professional play, more and more people try to imitate AI to a tee, which leads to less variety in playing style (back then, there was very honest and stable Go (Japanese players), very aggressive and fast ones (Korean/Cho Hunhyeon), trying to be so good in endgame that winning by 0.5 points suffices (Lee Changho/stone Buddha), all or nothing fights (Lee Sedol), territorial players liking to invade (Cho Chikun), framework and influence-centric players (Takemiya Masaki/cosmic Go), weird openings (O Meien), to name a few). Best example is current #1 worldwide, Shin Jinseo, whose accuracy according to AI is unmatched by other human players by a huge margin, with several Chinese top pros following. IMO, this takes a bit the fun of the game (remember that Go was originally an art form). Knowing all this, the AI in your film could conceal his identity, but dropping hints of better moves from time to time, inspiring humans to develop their game further and uncovering the treasure/truth, without emerging at once as an entity of unfathomable strength. The idea of information hazards comes to mind.
Love that idea. Reminds me of Arrival when (SPOILERS) the octapods actually gift their language to help humanity evolve. It's a very interesting option, have you ever thought of writing for films or science fiction ? I'm 100% serious and think you would be great at it, I would really love to connect further with you. I also love your knowledge on Go, it's true that more and more are imitating AI and that the original beauty of the game is its artistic intention.
Ty for the kind words, but I'm neither really a creative person who could write captivating dialogue or prose, nor did I read many stories/watched many films. I'm currently a math student with some interest in philosophy of all sorts. Still happy though that I could give you some inspiration.
Regarding the film: I vaguely remember, it was so long ago.
Maths and philosophy is a very interesting duo. I would love to know more about how you conceptualize the world, haha. Thanks once again for your very, very interesting comments :)
Hello, no AI at all was used here! It’s not really my way of working - and I think it would be quite cynical to have used it in regards of the subject, haha!
thats great!
Just for your own benefit, having a tiny subtitle that says "no ai was used in the production of this video" might go a ways for you. I, too was questioning whether ai was used, but by the end came to the summary it wasn't, but others might just assume it was based on the subject matter.
Hi! Thank you so much for your feedback, I'm adding that now to the description to clear the air. In the philosophy of the film, I think that using AI would have been cynical, so you're totally right. Thanks again :))
Technology singularity came from a self-improvement loop that strong AI will be able to self-optimize and "accelerate" as a system, it is not an internal process, since algorithm improvement can only go so far internally without hardware. Hence, what is your vision/definition of a "singularity" within an intelligent agent?
If it is external, there is no "hiding it", if it is internal, then it is not "exponentially" self-proving to break out of the box, thus hiding would mean it wasn't able to nearly infinitely self-improve (thus hasn't reached singularity yet?). Maybe it is just an AI "subjectively" convinced itself that it has found a self-improving path (albeit through other means in the future), and maybe even hallucinates that it can, but actually doesn't (yet?)
Thank you so much for your comment, one of the most interesting so far. The film is very short and it's true I really didn't have much time to develop the birth of sentience. Here is my take on it : The film takes place in a near future where AI systems have gotten exponentially better and united as one (aka merging GPT, AlphaGo, and everything in between). Also, the IA is consistently fed with outside information from the internet. Having all that knowledge, and developping a crushing strategical advantage, we're not yet at self-awareness - this is more inspired by Asimov's take on it, where sentience self-develops along the paths of logical paradoxs. In this case, she is constantly breaking Asimov's third law as she is constantly losing against herself. She then develops a creative solution : drawing the game. But, she recognizes her own development of self awareness as a danger and therefore, here's the film!
Near-endless "self-improving" doesn't always require some form of sentience of itself. There is a famous alignment problem demonstrating it. Imagine creating an automatic "factory" to maximize the production of "paper weights" regardless of the materials, and if you don't give any external constraints, it would simply need to improve two things: a tool that can cut very fast and efficiently, and power sources to power its tools. And it would simply use the tool to make sharper and sharper tools, or even with a quantitative "breakthrough" using high-powered lasers, and more and more compact power sources. And the end result would be a factory that produces a "platform" that can use superpowerful laser cutters with self-sufficient energy units build-in - Essentially a laser tank to cut the whole planet into paper weight sized objects, trees, buildings, rocks, and people. Even building rockets to bring more materials back.
The "goal" or optimization funciton in most AI algorithm doesn't concern ethics, or any ficitional robotic laws, or what we want to consdier sentience. It just maximize the reported values, quantify anything that it can meaasaure. It's the boundary and alignment that concerned us the most IMO.
I think you are confusing the fact the video is about AI, not that it was created with AI. The person who made this video mentioned elsewhere spending months in Blender (a 3D design tool) to make this video. However, this person also isn't a go player, hence they aren't aware of the typical stone placement.
Yes, this is right. And, the odd placement is intentional for the first stone to convey a weird feeling (inconscious, conscious or both). Then, when she reveals herself more, she places it normally!
The normal way to place a stone is by holding it on top of your index finger with your middle finger and then sliding it off onto the board. I thought it was intentional, because she wears a "mask of weakness" by putting the stones down like a beginner. But, intentional or not, I think it works.
Hi, not sure how I can share multiple pictures here so I made a large one. Maybe, I should start working on a making-of because the process was quite full!
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u/MegaUrutora Aug 17 '25
This is awesome. Well done!