Evolving Neural Networks to Play Go.

Abstract

Go is a difficult game for computers to master, and the best go programs are still weaker than the average human player. Since the traditional game playing techniques have proven inadequate, new approaches to computer go need to be studied. This paper presents a new approach to learning to play go. The SANE (Symbiotic, Adaptive NeuroEvolution) method was used to evolve networks capable of playing go on small boards with no pre-programmed go knowledge. On a 9 \\Theta 9 go board, networks that were able to defeat a simple computer opponent were evolved within a few hundred generations. Most significantly, the networks exhibited several aspects of general go playing, which suggests the approach could scale up well. 1 INTRODUCTION Go is hard. For computers at least, this is true. Though the game has not received the level of attention that computer chess, for example, has received, considerable effort has gone into trying to create strong go playing programs. Yet, despite this effort, the ...