cryptogon.com

The computer system amazed the world last year when it mastered the game of chess from scratch within just four hours, despite not being programmed how to win.

But now, after a year of testing and analysis by chess grandmasters, the machine has developed a new style of play unlike anything ever seen before, suggesting the programme is now improvising like a human.

Unlike the world’s best chess machine – Stockfish – which calculates millions of possible outcomes as it plays, AlphaZero learns from its past successes and failures, making its moves based on, a ‘nebulous sense that it is all going to work out in the long run,’ according to experts at DeepMind.

When AlphaZero was pitted against Stockfish in 1,000 games, it lost just six, winning convincingly 155 times, and drawing the remaining bouts.

Yet it was the way that it played that has amazed developers. While chess computers predominately like to hold on to their pieces, AlphaZero readily sacrificed its soldiers for a better position in the skirmish.

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Within just a few hours the programme had independently discovered and played common human openings and strategies before moving on to develop its own ideas, such as quickly swarming around the opponent’s king and placing far less value on individual pieces.

The new style of play has been analysed Chess Grandmaster Matthew Sadler and Women’s International Master Natasha Regan, who say it unlike any traditional chess engine.