On the other hand, AlphaZero seems to play to obtain a specific, although gradually accumulated, positional advantage that ultimately results in a resounding victory. It is happy to sacrifice “generally useful” material to get this.
AlphaZero plays chess in a manner that is completely unlike how humans, or even human-designed chess programs play chess. A human grandmaster does play much like you describe yourself playing: accumulating piece advantages, and only making limited sacrifices to gain position, when it’s clear that the positional advantage outweighs the piece disadvantage.
AlphaZero, on the other hand, plays much more positionally. In its games against Stockfish, it would make sacrifices that Stockfish thought were crazy, as Stockfish was evaluating the board based on pieces and AlphaZero was evaluating the board based on position.
AlphaZero plays chess in a manner that is completely unlike how humans, or even human-designed chess programs play chess. A human grandmaster does play much like you describe yourself playing: accumulating piece advantages, and only making limited sacrifices to gain position, when it’s clear that the positional advantage outweighs the piece disadvantage.
AlphaZero, on the other hand, plays much more positionally. In its games against Stockfish, it would make sacrifices that Stockfish thought were crazy, as Stockfish was evaluating the board based on pieces and AlphaZero was evaluating the board based on position.