I really enjoyed the upbeat positive outlook of the article.
Unfortunately, as an ex poker pro, I find it hard to imagine that AI "lifts people up" in domains like games. Sandholm's bots pretty much destroyed poker.
Poker is all about “taking the emotion out of the game”, isn’t? In such cases, what can beat a machine? Doesn't a machine naturally have the best “poker face”?
The idea of "poker face" isn't really relevant as most people have a "good enough" pokerface. The idea of looking into your opponent's eyes and just feeling out what they have is something from movies, not real life (I'm sure you can find exceptions to the rule, but this is true in the general case).
What can beat a machine? Another machine, sadly. We are well past the point where machines surpasses humans in most poker variants.
Unfortunately, as an ex poker pro, I find it hard to imagine that AI "lifts people up" in domains like games. Sandholm's bots pretty much destroyed poker.