This was an interesting read, but it felt incomplete in the way it described the harm of using AI to cheat. Disempowerment isn’t the main story here.
The primary reason that it’s wrong to cheat in a recreational game of Go is that it’s rude to your opponent. If the other player wanted to play against AI, they could do that themselves—usually, they’re playing against a human because that’s what they prefer to do. It’s dishonest to present yourself as a human player (which is what they wanted) and then play AI moves (which is not what they wanted).
It’s the similar principle as underlies the rudeness of X reply bots. If someone wants to read Claude output, they can ask Claude themselves—they’re reading your reply because they want to hear your thoughts, not Claude’s.
If the AI-using players were upfront and honest that they use AI to play, there wouldn’t be any problem. It’s just a recreational game after all—if that’s fun for them, go for it.
This was an interesting read, but it felt incomplete in the way it described the harm of using AI to cheat. Disempowerment isn’t the main story here.
The primary reason that it’s wrong to cheat in a recreational game of Go is that it’s rude to your opponent. If the other player wanted to play against AI, they could do that themselves—usually, they’re playing against a human because that’s what they prefer to do. It’s dishonest to present yourself as a human player (which is what they wanted) and then play AI moves (which is not what they wanted).
It’s the similar principle as underlies the rudeness of X reply bots. If someone wants to read Claude output, they can ask Claude themselves—they’re reading your reply because they want to hear your thoughts, not Claude’s.
If the AI-using players were upfront and honest that they use AI to play, there wouldn’t be any problem. It’s just a recreational game after all—if that’s fun for them, go for it.