Cited by 30Artificial Intelligence in GamesArtificial Intelligence ApplicationsSport Psychology and Performance

How Does AI Improve Human Decision-Making? Evidence from the AI-Powered Go Program

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Choi, Sukwoong, Kim, Namil, Kim, Junsik, Kang, Hyo·2021·SSRN Electronic Journal

Abstract

How does AI improve human decision-making? Answering this question is challenging because it is difficult to assess the quality of each decision and to disentangle AI’s influence on decisions. We study professional Go games, which provide a unique opportunity to overcome such challenges. In 2016 an AI-powered Go program (APG) unexpectedly beat the best human player, surpassing the best human knowledge and skills accumulated over thousands of years. To investigate the impact of APGs, we compare human moves to AI’s superior solutions, before and after the initial public release of an APG. Our analysis of 750,990 moves in 25,033 games by 1,242 professional players reveals that APGs significantly improved the quality of the players’ moves as measured by the changes in winning probability with each move. We also show that the key mechanisms are reductions in the number of human errors and in the magnitude of the most critical mistake during the game. Interestingly, the improvement is most prominent in the early stage of a game when uncertainty is higher. Further, young players—who are more open to and better able to utilize APG—benefit more than senior players, suggesting generational inequality in AI adoption and utilization.

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Crossref · 10.2139/ssrn.3893835

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114 of 114 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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  • Human decision quality in Go showed very little improvement from 1950 to 2016, followed by a sudden improvement after the introduction of AlphaGo in March 2016.

    “The decision quality, as measured by an open-source variant of AlphaGo Zero, showed very little improvement in human gameplay from 1950 to 2016, followed by a sudden improvement after the introduction of AlphaGo in March 2016 (refs.32,33) (Fig. 3b).”

    From Machine culture (2023) · cites this paper as [32]

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Authors
Choi, S., Kim, N., Kim, J., & Kang, H.
Affiliations
  • University at Albany, State University of New York (US)
  • Yonsei University (KR)
  • Harvard University (US)
  • University of Southern California (US)
Corresponding author
Kim, Namil
Venue
SSRN Electronic Journal
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2021
ISSN
1556-5068 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3186551756
Cited by
30
References
114
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 1
Type
posted content
Language
en
Open access
Locations
SSRN Electronic Journal (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Artificial Intelligence in Games
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Artificial Intelligence Applications
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Sport Psychology and Performance
Keywords
AI-assisted decision-making, human-AI interaction, Go, professional Go players, AI adoption in organizations, skill level differences, youth players, uncertainty

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