Not just a game: The role of Artificial Intelligence is the focus of an upcoming movie and discussion at Cultural Arts Center on October 26
By THERESA KEEGAN
If it seems complexity and simplicity are totally incongruous, you’ve probably never played Go, a strategy board game developed thousands of years ago in China. And it is also a harbinger of what is to come with Artificial Intelligence, based on a highly touted man versus machine event that was held in 2016.
And now, with all the current discussion about AI and its impact on society, the Laguna Beach Cultural Arts Center is addressing this topic in an upcoming event.
“AI is scaring a lot of people these days, especially creatives, due to its algorithms generating everything from abstract paintings to realistic portraits,” said Rick Conkey, executive director at LBCAC. “We want to raise awareness about this controversial subject.”
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Courtesy of IMDB
The Cultural Arts Center is showing the movie “AlphaGo,” which documents the development of a computer program, using Artificial Intelligence, to play the game Go against a top-ranked player
To that end, the Center is showing the powerful movie AlphaGo, which documents the development of this AI program by Google Deepmind, and the run up to the 2016 matches of the second highest-ranked Go player in the world, against the computer. A $1 million prize was at stake. In Go, two players use black and white stones and compete to maximize their presence on the board, as well as their captured stones.
While chess has a finite number of moves, it’s believed Go has more options than the number of atoms in the observable universe. In the 2017 film, the computer program develops an unexpected approach and the ramifications ripple to the Go players, the observers and the developing computer program.
“This is a beautifully crafted film diving deep into the AI subject in a compelling way,” said Conkey.
The night will include a discussion with Jeff Rovner, an attorney specializing in AI, as well as a photographer who exhibits at the Festival of Arts, and Paul Freeman, former mayor of Laguna Beach and an avid Go player.
“AlphaGo is a wonderful movie,” said Rovner. He cites not only the technical neural networks that are advanced in the film, but also the human element of the movie, particularly how the competition affected the highly ranked Go player, Lee Sedol.
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Courtesy of Jeff Rovner
Jeff Rovner, an attorney and photographer who lives in Laguna Beach, is an expert on Artificial Intelligence and will be joining a discussion about the implications of the technology on October 26 at the Cultural Center
“To watch this human, who’d spent his whole life mastering this game, being beaten by this impersonal software, is amazing,” said Rovner. “And that scenario is going to play out in one industry after another…The technology will not create new jobs – it will require new skills. There will be a huge amount of dislocation of work and economies.”
Rovner became involved with AI in the legal field, where he saw its benefits when working on big lawsuits that contain thousands of documents and correspondence. As the managing director of information for an international law firm, he was one of the first in the industry to tap into the managerial and organizational benefits of AI.
At the same time, his fellow artists at the FOA started discussing AI and often the conversation was fearful.
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Courtesy of Jeff Rovner
At the UN’s AI event in 2019, Jeff Rovner spoke with Anousheh Ansari, CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation, about the AI code incorporated in a piece of his artwork. The code was developed by NASA and Google to find planets outside our solar system. The XPRIZE is a $20 million competition to ignite commercial spaceflight and Ansari has traveled to the space station as a space tourist.
“They knew what AI was, but didn’t know how it was produced, or what it was,” said Rovner. His response was to create a series of photographs Artificial Intelligence that reflected various categories of AI such as self-driving vehicles, medicines, robotics, space exploration, etc. Each colorful, playful image had a plexiglass covering upon which the computer code in that field is etched.
In addition to showing [this series] at the festival in 2019 and 2021 (COVID closed the grounds in 2020), Rovner exhibited this body of work at the United Nations AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva in 2019.
“Up until recently AI was a more predictable operative – it was statistical,” Rovner said. “It’s only the advances of ChatGPT that has allowed it to do amazing things. We can now address activities that require understanding language.”
That evolution may be a tipping point as society learns to live with AI, but even with the greatest computer advances, Rovner believes people will still play games – and love them.
“The chess computer has been around a long time,” said Rovner. “But that doesn’t stop people playing chess with a friend, or in the park.”
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Courtesy of Paul Freeman
Laguna Beach resident and former mayor Paul Freeman is an avid Go player. He was also instrumental in establishing the Laguna Wilderness area.
The connection and challenge of Go is what keeps Freeman active in the Go community, which has clubs throughout Orange County – and the world. Many members are mathematicians and philosophers, according to Freeman, who is now an independent consultant.
“I learned Go when I was 30, and now I’m in my 70s and I still love to play,” said Freeman. “I was immediately engaged, for it was simple and utterly complicated at the same time.”
Courtesy of Paul Freeman
Paul Freeman has been playing GO for more than 40 years and has even been ranked according to the American Go Association
Ironically, winning is not always the reason to play, said Freeman.
“I’m a strategy person and it’s always a good game with two strong players,” he said. “You can see your own strengths and weaknesses in the game as it’s going on. It’s very therapeutic.”
For more information about the AlphaGo show and discussion about Artificial Intelligence at the LBCAC, click here.
For tickets to the October 26 showing and discussion, which begins at 6:30 p.m., click here.