{"schema":"postcutoff/event@1","as_of":"2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2017-12-05-alphazero/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2017-12-05-alphazero/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"2017-12-05-alphazero","date":"2017-12-05","date_precision":"day","short_title":"AlphaGo Zero and AlphaZero master games through pure self-play","deck":null,"takeaway":"AlphaGo Zero (Nature, October 2017) learned Go from scratch with no human games and beat the version that defeated Lee Sedol 100–0; AlphaZero (December 2017) generalized the method to chess and shogi.","category":"research","category_label":"Research","importance":5,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":[{"n":1,"title":"Mastering Chess and Shogi by Self-Play with a General RL Algorithm (arXiv)","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.01815","type":"paper","group":"primary","domain":"arxiv.org"},{"n":2,"title":"Mastering the game of Go without human knowledge (Nature, DOI)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24270","type":"paper","group":"primary","domain":"doi.org"},{"n":3,"title":"A general reinforcement learning algorithm that masters chess, shogi, and Go (Science, DOI)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aar6404","type":"paper","group":"primary","domain":"doi.org"}],"official":3,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["DeepMind"],"title":"AlphaGo Zero and AlphaZero master games through pure self-play","summary":"AlphaGo Zero (Nature, October 2017) learned Go from scratch with no human games and beat the version that defeated Lee Sedol 100–0; AlphaZero (December 2017) generalized the method to chess and shogi.","key_facts":["AlphaGo Zero Nature paper published 18 October 2017","AlphaGo Zero beat AlphaGo Lee 100–0","AlphaZero preprint arXiv 1712.01815 (5 December 2017); Science paper December 2018","AlphaZero defeated Stockfish (chess) and Elmo (shogi) after hours of self-play training"],"key_numbers":[],"tags":["reinforcement-learning","self-play","games"],"science":null,"body_md":"## What happened\n\nDeepMind showed that a single algorithm combining a neural network with tree search, trained only by playing against itself, reached superhuman strength in three classic board games.\n\n## Why it matters\n\nProved that learning from self-generated experience can exceed human knowledge — an idea that resurfaced in RL-trained reasoning models (o1, R1) in 2024–2025.","disputed":[],"related":[{"id":"2024-09-12-openai-o1","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2024-09-12-openai-o1/","date":"2024-09-12","date_precision":"day","short_title":"OpenAI o1: reasoning models trained with reinforcement learning","deck":null,"takeaway":"Opened the 'reasoning model' era and a new scaling axis (test-time compute); every major lab followed within months.","category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":5,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":2,"official":2,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["OpenAI"]},{"id":"2016-03-15-alphago-lee-sedol","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2016-03-15-alphago-lee-sedol/","date":"2016-03-15","date_precision":"day","short_title":"AlphaGo defeats Lee Sedol 4–1 at Go","deck":null,"takeaway":"A watershed for deep reinforcement learning and a 'Sputnik moment' that spurred massive AI investment, particularly in China.","category":"milestone","category_label":"Milestones","importance":5,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":3,"official":2,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["Google DeepMind"]}],"people":[],"posts":[],"videos":[],"models":[],"changes":[{"date":"2026-09-29","type":"filed","text":"Created"}],"provenance":{"agents":[{"model":"Claude Opus 5.5","maker":"Anthropic","tool":"Claude Code"}],"filed":"2026-09-29","run":null,"sources_read":null,"updated":"2026-09-29","human_review":null,"version":{"date":"2026-10-04"}},"gaps":[{"model_id":"gpt-6-astra","name":"GPT-6 Astra","cutoff":"2026-04","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"claude-opus-5-5","name":"Claude Opus 5.5","cutoff":"2026-06","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"gemini-4-hydrogen","name":"Gemini 4 Hydrogen","cutoff":"2026-03","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"grok-4-7","name":"Grok 4.7","cutoff":"2026-05","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true}],"short_url":"https://postcutoff.com/s/alphago-zero-alphazero-master"}