After Loss To AlphaGo, Humans Defiantly Retreat To Calvinball
WUZHEN, CHINA — After a stunning series of defeats against Google’s AlphaGo AI, humanity is defiantly retreating to a game that we’re sure the computers won’t be able to master — Calvinball. In a three-part match that was livestreamed on YouTube, AlphaGo trounced Ke Jie, the world’s number one human Go player, causing a generation of aspiring professional Go players to start updating their resumes.
In 1996, IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer defeated world chess champion Gary Kasparov. However, Go is a vastly more complex game than western chess. Experts believed it would still take another decade before computers would be able to beat top human players in Go — that is, until AlphaGo came onto the scene. Now a generation of aspiring Go players who banked on having another decade of job security are now flocking to Calvinball.
Unlike Go, Calvinball does not take place on a board. Instead, players must run around a Calvinball field and make up the rules as they go. The only fixed rule is that a game cannot be played the same way as a previous game. Already, a burgeoning tournament scene is developing, fueled by an influx of former chess players, Jeopardy contestants, and Go players who have been made redundant by artificial intelligence.
“Just as running has been made obsolete by cars, there’s no point to having humans play Go if they’re just going to be worse than the machines. On the other hand, Calvinball is a game that a machine could not possibly understand,” said one former 3rd dan Go player wielding a mask and mallet during a recent Calvinball practice. “The game displays a fluidity and spontaneity that cannot be found in the rules and strictures of traditional board games. One could say that it’s beautiful. And even more beautifully for me, I hear that humans will have the advantage here for at least the next thirty years.”
The artificial intelligence community admits that the vagaries of Calvinball are still out of the reach of today’s technology. However, Boston Dynamics, another Google subsidiary, released a video of a new tiger-inspired robot that is able to pounce on unwitting targets, regularly disparages human nature, and reportedly demonstrates a strong affinity for tuna.
