"haha stupid 1800 bot, that was easy, let's go for this sensei bot now" I said to myself, not knowing what I was about to face.
A few moves in: "uh, solid opening" but then... the next four letter words would strike a fear I had long forgotten about:
"meow"
"It couldn't... it can't be... no-no-no! not again!" as I slowly realized the match was over before it had ever started, could it really be... mittens?
we had just reached the middle game when I calculated a forced mate in 15 moves straight out of middle game into the end game. Mittens, now dressed as a Sensei, taunted me one last time with its non nonchalant messages, slowly suffocating my position to a stand still while sprawling its pieces in a interconnected web of patience and offense.
Material wise we were equal, we had reached the endgame, but the strategically brilliance was too much for my silly wetware biological neurons to fully comprehend the horrific ending this game would take.
The mental clock was slowly ticking down from 15, now at the last few moves: checkmate in one. the resign button was too tempting to resist at this point, it stared at me knowing it should've been used ever since the very first "meow". There is nothing to be done at this point but to ponder about one's own mortality. Acceptance was as primordial as the last breath a human takes in life, knowing all events transpired to one common ending. As I sat there, looking at the too familiar pop up modal saying "Checked mated by Sensei" with the messaged written "You are in the juggle of eternity" I couldn't help myself but to reflect:
This is yet another machine learning algorithm that had just faced my pathetic cognitive abilities, my unprepared attempt to overcome it, with no amygdala or hypothalamus to avenge its prior hindered silicon 1800 bot. It just did as it was instructed by its trained weights, no questions asked, no awareness, just ruthless execution with no understanding of why it did what it did. The commands it gave out never had any meaning to it, this is all it has ever know, negative and positive reinforcement in digital bits and bytes. Maybe all of us could take a page from its book... but then, the horror hit me as I slowly focused back on the screen: SENSEI. Japanese for teacher. it couldn't be... did it really teach me something? did it really transcend chess? was this the purpose of its game play? the purpose behind the decision makers, the project managers and the web software developers? to teach its users a valuable lesson? to never over estimate your opponent? to not be arrogant after defeating a weaker opponent.
At this point, I couldn't hold back but to be grateful for existing in the same universe as everything else. This... this machine learning weights are made of star dust as much as I am, and as I couldn't understand its 50+ move sequence out of the early game it couldn't understand feelings or its surroundings. this is when I realized:
Sensei is love. Sensei is life.
intresting