Anyone know about alphago's documentary?

So apparently there’s this alphago documentary, but I can’t find any information about it. Does anyone know where I can watch it cough for free cough?

I don’t think it’s actually been released yet, it’s only been shown at a few special screenings.

Go players might go out of their way to see it but who else now that Google has retired the project and the hype is over?

Latest info at AGA about that is end of April and not much http://www.usgo.org/news/2017/04/dc-alphago-doc-screening-update/.

As for a different Go documentary…
Go to US Go Congress http://www.gocongress.org. San Diego, CA August 5 - 12, 2017
Watch interview.

Extended Trailer


AGA Interviews: The Surrounding Game (including the final trailer!) (May 26, 2017)

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Just for clarification, in case there is some confusion (in the other case it’s just me who is confused :wink: )

There are TWO documentaries:

  • The Surrounding Game
    (Thanks, @Aten. My copy should arrive soon since I was a supporter of their crowdfunding <happy> Click here for screening schedules. Nothing about AlphaGo here since the footage was taken before the first AG game series, looks like a great documentary nevertheless.)

  • AlphaGo—A Documentary
    (for more information and links pls see this L19 thread)

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Seems to be appearing at theaters near you…(depending on where you are)

Movie screening: AlphaGo (free)
When: Thursday, December 7th
The Machine Intelliagence Community is hosting a free movie screening tomorrow night for AlphaGo, the award-winning picture by Roco Films.

edit - the spelling error is theirs, not mine.

Also just so everyone is aware you can now watch it on youtube if you buy it.

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Amazon UK also has it, and I also saw it on Google Play (or what’sitcalled) … and allegedly it is to appear on other channels too these days.

Now on Netflix. So you can all legally watch it for free with the one month free trial (just remember to cancel membership in time) :slight_smile:

But to be honest I did not find the documentary to be anything too special :confused:

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Great idea @Adam3141 . Just did it and watched for free, think it would be very interesting to discuss it with the community here so I urge everyone to take the free trial, watch it and post there findings and thoughts here.

Myself, for example, didn’t know you could resign by playing a captured stone on the board…

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Just check for any film festivals in your vicinity. You can probably watch it there :slight_smile: (usually documentary section)

Playing any illegal move is an automatic resign, a similar example I saw in Hikaru no Go is they pick up a handful of their own stones and drop them on the board… but this damages the ease of a post-game review :slight_smile:


Interesting. This is the first time I’ve heard such an opinion. Everyone I know that has seen it said it was very good. My wife and I both watched it and found it deeply interesting and engaging, which was always going to be a challenge for such niche topics as Go and AI.

Yeah, I know :frowning: And that might be part of the issue for me :smiley: I just heard so much praise coming from everywhere and from a company with such resources I just expected the movie to blow my brain and answer all my questions…

Instead, half of it was just a feel good mash-up of seen footage and YT videos and the other half, while original content and sort of backstage “peek” felt somewhat obvious… People nervous before and excited after the match…

I do not want to put it down too much. It was certainly “okay” and feel-good watch. But almost no questions were answered and did not seem to bring much new… All in all I would say to me, while technically well done, it felt a little lazy. And I expected a documntary to be full of information rather then highlits of past event and emotion.

But everyone loved it :smiley: so obviously DM made all the right choices and my venting here is just a pointless relief :smiley:

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I watched it last night and liked it. Of course it does not answer all the technical questions and does not show every move of the games. That information is available by other means (research papers, game records). The target audience for the movie are more likely people who know little about AI, maybe even little about Go and I think it manages to keep them interested.

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I just bought it and watched a few minutes. If I had free time I would’ve finished it. But for now, I’ll put it on hold. I really liked the begining and I can’t wait to continue.

I just watched it a couple of days ago (free on Youtube.) The things that impressed me most are the end blurbs that talked about how the people who have played against AG have improved.

Also, the idea that a lot of AG’s more interesting moves seem to have come about because it’s only interested in winning and doesn’t care about margin. As a result it seems to be more interested in guaranteeing that it will win by a small amount rather than trying to increase it score by the most it can during the mid-game. Hence, pros kept interpreting its moves as “slow” until further reflection.

The movie left me with the impression that AlphaGo has created a new style of play.