Bots are ruining my joy of playing go. And their numbers are increasing. Can you make it mandatory to mark a user as a bot if an automated tool is used? And can there be a setting in creating games “human users only” to filter them from accepting games?
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As far as I know, there are no bots that accept other people’s game offers.
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The policies you’re asking for already exist (No Cheating or Computer Help). If this is about https://online-go.com/game/18909062, I can confirm that your opponent was human.
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Out of genuine curiosity - what were the factors that led you to believe that your opponent was either a bot or was using AI assistance?
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And, since many people are visiting that game now, can I note:
- If you suspect someone of using a bot, don’t tell them, tell us.
I presume it’s obvious that if someone cheating knows they are suspected, then they get harder to nail.
- Under no circumstances start swearing in chat. This puts you in breach of the Terms of Service and can result in chat privileges being removed.
EuG
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fighting against swearing is stupid. you are taking away one of the few things humane and pointing me to a 15000 character terms of service which nobody reads or applies as protection against bots.
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You seem very certain that you were playing against a bot. Can you please explain the source of your certainty because it was not obvious to me at least
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I’ve looked at your game and believe your opponent plays like a human. @mark5000 has done the same and he is our foremost moderator when it comes to reviewing accusations of botting. If you really believe everyone in this thread is wrong, please at least tell us why you believe your opponent is a bot.
However, to reiterate Eugene’s warning, swearing at players is indeed against our ToS and will lead to your chat privileges being revoked if this behaviour consists. This rule is completely unrelated to your accusation of your opponent being a bot.
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Note: don’t do that here in the forum.
Instead, raise a report against the game, using the “call moderator button”, and it will be investigated with all due process and care.
EuG
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Please people, if you are not shocked by the sophistication of bots, you know nothing about bots. Cute though “Its not a bot, its a human” LOL
Alpha Go was 2 years ago…
Can’t wait till we have cheat detection bots up and running though <3
AlphaGo does not play like a human at all. It’s the other way around, humans have started to play like AlphaGo.
The sophistication of bots has nothing to do with playing human-like, but has to do with playing incredibly strong. Bots who play around 9k (which is what black seems to be in the shared game) probably play even less like human 9k’s than AlphaGo compared to strong professionals.
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Hi there!
Boy, there are a LOT of assumptions being made in your post!
I’m just a humble DDK, but I’ve been fascinated by the strength of various AI bots, and the differences between human play and AI play for a while. I’m also fascinated by the differences in tabula-rasa learning bots vs bots trained on a mixture of human games and self play. I’ve written a few times about Centaur go, and doing teaching games where both players use an AI assist as a departure point for learning about strategy, and discussing the pro/cons of a given move
And that’s just me.
Indicating that an experienced go player from the OGS team (i.e. mark5000) is somehow naive and cannot tell the difference between human play and AI play would seem - oh, I don’t know - ill advised? Since I’m sure mark has seen every variation of this under the sun.
So, let’s just break it down. you’ve got a game where a 9kyu is playing a 7kyu. What would be the factors that would lead one to believe that one of the players is unfairly using AI assistance, or is not a human player at all and just an AI bot responding?
Well, I guess the most obvious tell would be if a player was playing at one skill level for the first 1/2 of the game, and then suddenly started making much higher level moves in the second 1/2 of the game. Was that the case here? Doesn’t seem like it to me…
Alternately, one could make the case that the entire play-style of that player indicated a much higher skill level from the very beginning of the game than their current OGS rating would indicate. Again, I’m not seeing any obvious signs of that in the game in question (but what do I know? I’m just a humble DDK…)
Again, I’m not looking for some Final Answer at the Back of the Book. I’m just trying to explore this new grey area we are finding ourselves in, where the go players of the world suddenly have all of these amazing high-level AI tools that anyone can use for free, and the only thing that really keeps us from just cheating all the time is this idea that it’s our actual skill in the game which is important - and not some abstract number reflecting how many games we’ve won, and that constantly depending on bots will actually hamper our learning more than enabling it in the end.
With all that in mind, I’m genuinely curious as to what clues indicate to you (and to the OP) that the play style of their opponent was a bot? Was it a sudden apparent jump in skill level? Was it a certain un-orthodoxy in move order or tactics? What was it about the style of play that hit the OP’s “this-is-bot-ness” receptors?
Thoughts?
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In online chess, there’s this:
Q: “How do you know if your opponent was cheating by using a computer?”
A: “If he wins”
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And it’s close cousin: how do you know if your opponent is sandbagging? 
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If you’re sandbagging, and he wins. Obviously.
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6, 12, 5, 4
These are really the only numbers you need to look at to know the player in the game cited by mark5000 is NOT a bot player. On the day he played you, he won 6 games against “stronger” opponents (one was you) and lost 12 game to “stronger opponents”. If he was a bot user, those numbers would, at the very least, be reversed. He/she also won 5 games against weaker opponents and lost 4 against weak opponents!
You lost the game. Against someone who is routinely losing to stronger opponents and even loses half their games that day to weaker opponents. It’s so easy to think “this person is using help”, heck, they could have had a Dan sitting next to them telling them the right moves and the result would have been the same… a victory. But when you look at this players history you can clearly see they are exactly at the level they have been at forever on this server. They aren’t climbing like bot players do, they are just playing and whatever move(s) seemed overly clever, they just got you. Maybe it was style of play, maybe you were off that day…
That’s it.
Look at the facts.
Any given day people play well or worse. For example, on August 22nd you, sir, played 14 games. You lost only 3 of them. It would be easy to cherry pick one situation, one day, and imply that you had bot help. The reality is that you play the majority of those games against lower level opponents.
People are allowed to make great moves, regardless of their level, and not be a bot.
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In the long run it doesn’t matter if your opponent “cheats” with bots.
Humans are beings of habit.
You won’t find a Bot-user who uses such aid “one time only”
Continuous use will automatically reflect on the rank and as a bot-user, you’ll move up to the rank which reflects your strength with your Bot.
If you still want to win, you have to cheat better and more to still get that happy fluffy feeling of winning. Meanwhile your game without Aid will suffer tremendously, because you won’t be able to make decisions alone anymore.
just a small rant from me
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Women are creatures of habit too
I edited to humans. i thought “Men” refers to everyone but english isn’t my native language
It can, but in our increasingly women’s rights focused world, that usage is becoming archaic. Most people should usually understand what you mean, but human is still your safest bet in terms of clarity.