It was shortly after the war and we little boys back in our country homes on summer vacation had few means of passing the time. My house had a large shed where all kinds of tools for farming and other trades were stored, along with old furniture and curios collected by ancestors. One day, we decided to make an inventory of the shed to see if there was anything of our interest.  

In one corner, we found a Go board and wooden bowls containing white clamshells and very little black pebbles. The Go board was not actually a board but a box with four legs made of paulownia. Inside was a coil spring that produced a soft clanging sound when the player placed a stone on the board. While the board was of such an exquisite design, the stones, both black and white, were in their coarse natural form without grinding.

My father had died long ago and the family had no one to play Go, known as “baduk” in Korea, so the valued equipment had been left in the shed until we luckily discovered it gathering dust. None of our brothers, cousins and village kids had an advanced skill in the game, so we learned it through playing against each other. By the time the vacation ended, we had mastered the basic rules and techniques of the game enough to hold tournaments for a prize.

Returning to school, I found many of my schoolmates were already playing Go and some were claiming certain proficiency degrees. They gave me ninth degree, or “geup,” that goes with the beginner’s status. My baduk hobby had thus started and continued through higher levels of school and my career without interruption.

The full six decades of time saw my Go title advance only to the third degree, yet I believe the lessons I learned from the game have contributed a lot to the maturing of my personality, or mentality. I am sure the same can be said of my Go pals, who have a stronger attachment to and appreciation of the game than any other kind of sports they enjoy.

Over millennia, monarchs, generals, scholars, writers and village noblemen played Go and elevated the game to a spiritual exercise with moral guidelines. Wise people have produced 10 Go commandments, 20 cautions, 30 proverbs and numerous lines of tactical principles which are related to the Oriental philosophy based largely on Confucian thought. It is common to see the two opponents reciting a Go maxim to justify each move they make.

“Earning 50 houses (points) in the initial stage leads you to certain defeat,” one of the proverbs says. Greed certainly destroys you on the 19-by-19 Go grid, as it usually does in the real world. In battles, friendly stones are connected and those of the adversary are cut to grab more space, yet the key to victory is moderation and modesty. “Offense is the best defense” does not apply, at least in Go.

A solemn reminder of Go’s noble influence on human character may be the fact that no Go grandmaster has ever been involved in any embarrassing scandal in our society. Listen to Lee Se-dol’s apology to Go fans after he suffered his third straight loss to AlphaGo and you see the purity of mind from a life devoted entirely to the Go board. It conveyed his genuine regret for disappointing so many people who had hoped for his victory.

Google’s DeepMind, the creator of the computer Go warrior, wrapped up the five-game match at Seoul’s Four Seasons Hotel Tuesday. Computer programmers at the world’s largest Internet service and software company will celebrate the outcome, but, unlike its name, there is no “deep mind” to credit the win. We are told that 1,200 supercomputers supported AlphaGo by processing and analyzing huge amounts of data from all the games played by Asian grandmasters and produced every desired “move” for the Seoul match.

While the historic games were underway, Go fans were amazed by the great skill of the lifeless player in offensive moves and defensive gambits against the 32-year-old world champion. Both professionals and amateurs watching TV broadcasts had some consolation when they detected the limits – blunders – of the challenger, particularly when responding to the human grandmaster’s unorthodox moves. Yet, they agreed it would be a matter of time that the combined power of computers would prove stronger than individual genius.

It is regrettable that the Lee-AlphaGo match was promoted as a human vs. machine duel. Ignored are the facts that the CPUs employed in this game were, after all, products of human brains and hands and that they were invented to help increase the happiness of mankind. This confrontational format may have been necessary for the business of Google Inc. but it could foment the doomsday fear of artificial intelligence controlling humanity. We must admit that the sensationalism-prone media also liked it that way.  

AI needs to be developed to supplement man’s capabilities, for example, helping businesspeople in the collection and analysis of big data of all related fields or assisting in home management with optimum room temperature and lighting and even monitoring babies, as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg suggested. Collaboration with robotics and medicine will promise a great future for AI, but please leave us alone as we play Go!

Starting in the early 2000s, I went on Go tours with three college classmates, driving to places of interest across the country once in every two to three months, carrying two Go boards and stones in the trunk. We, all of us at the same third-degree level, played the game indoors and outdoors -- on a pension terrace in Gyeongpodae, at a picnic table on the Bogildo beach and on the lawn of Nammangsan Park in Tongyeong. We played a tournament at Hwagaesa Temple in Gyodongdo Island overlooking North Korean hills.

The tours, the best piece of my new millennium memories, were suspended after a member of the group suffered a stroke four years ago. His recovery is slow, keeping him at home, in front of the TV and computer. I just hope that DeepMind, with its superb technology will develop interesting Go programs that can help my dear friend professor Kang feel less lonesome.


By Kim Myong-sik

Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. – Ed.