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Acquisition of Chess Knowledge in AlphaZero [pdf] (arxiv.org)
2 points by rococode on Nov 18, 2021 | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: Scientists tracked what AlphaZero stores inside as it learns chess, testing its inner layers for human chess ideas at each training stage. Those human-style concepts did appear, emerging at particular points in training and in particular layers.

Abstract · Acquisition of Chess Knowledge in AlphaZero

What is learned by sophisticated neural network agents such as AlphaZero? This question is of both scientific and practical interest. If the representations of strong neural networks bear no resemblance to human concepts, our ability to understand faithful explanations of their decisions will be restricted, ultimately limiting what we can achieve with neural network interpretability. In this work we provide evidence that human knowledge is acquired by the AlphaZero neural network as it trains on the game of chess. By probing for a broad range of human chess concepts we show when and where these concepts are represented in the AlphaZero network. We also provide a behavioural analysis focusing on opening play, including qualitative analysis from chess Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik. Finally, we carry out a preliminary investigation looking at the low-level details of AlphaZero's representations, and make the resulting behavioural and representational analyses available online.

Thomas McGrath, Andrei Kapishnikov, Nenad Tomašev, Adam Pearce, Demis Hassabis, Been Kim, Ulrich Paquet, Vladimir Kramnik
arXiv:2111.09259 · cs.AI, stat.ML · submitted Nov 17, 2021 · updated Aug 18, 2022
abstract · pdf · html · 69 pages, 44 figures

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