Answers.Body: <p>Yes!</p>
  <p><a href="https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0" rel="nofollow noreferrer">LeelaChessZero</a>, an open-source re-implementation and continuation of AlphaZero, has been experimenting with this for a while now. Their strongest networks are currently transformers, not convolution-based ResNets anymore.</p>
  <p>Some resources:</p>
  <ul>
  <li>The <a href="https://lczero.org/blog/2023/01/2022-progress/#network-architecture" rel="nofollow noreferrer">2022 progress</a> blog post</li>
  <li>More details on the network architecture as of 7 months ago <a href="https://github.com/Ergodice/lczero-training/blob/attention-net-body/README.md" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a></li>
  <li>A <a href="https://lczero.org/blog/2024/02/how-well-do-lc0-networks-compare-to-the-greatest-transformer-network-from-deepmind/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">recent comparison</a> to the latest DeepMind paper, which also uses transformers.</li>
  <li>A <a href="https://lczero.org/blog/2024/02/transformer-progress/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">recent blog post</a> about the current best transformer architecture.</li>
  </ul>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-02-24T18:20:44.293Z
Answers.Text: Cool!  Does Leela still use MCTS, in conjunction with the new transformer architecture?
Answers.UserDisplayName: Ben G
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-02-24T18:24:50.633Z
Answers.Text: Yeah they do. They've added some improvements to the core UCT formula and to the selfplay data generation process, but the big picture is still very much the same.
Answers.UserDisplayName: KarelPeeters
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2024-02-24T12:51:08.990Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2024-03-02T10:11:03.430Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2024-03-02T10:11:03.430Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: KarelPeeters
Body: <p>AlphaZero utilized a residual convolutional neural network to estimate move policy and position value.  If it was rebuilt today, would it be more efficient and powerful if they used a transformer architecture instead?  Assume the same amount of compute power and training time is available, and purely self-play, aiming for as fair a comparison as possible.</p>
  
Tags: <reinforcement-learning><convolutional-neural-networks><transformer><alphazero><alphago>
Title: Would AlphaZero perform better if made with transformers?
UserDisplayName: Ben G
ThreadText: # Would AlphaZero perform better if made with transformers?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2024-02-24)
  
  AlphaZero utilized a residual convolutional neural network to estimate move policy and position value. If it was rebuilt today, would it be more efficient and powerful if they used a transformer architecture instead? Assume the same amount of compute power and training time is available, and purely self-play, aiming for as fair a comparison as possible.
  
  **Tags:** reinforcement-learning, convolutional-neural-networks, transformer, alphazero, alphago
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2024-02-24. Score: 4
  
  Yes!
  
  [LeelaChessZero](https://github.com/LeelaChessZero/lc0), an open-source re-implementation and continuation of AlphaZero, has been experimenting with this for a while now. Their strongest networks are currently transformers, not convolution-based ResNets anymore.
  
  Some resources:
  
  * The [2022 progress](https://lczero.org/blog/2023/01/2022-progress/#network-architecture) blog post
  * More details on the network architecture as of 7 months ago [here](https://github.com/Ergodice/lczero-training/blob/attention-net-body/README.md)
  * A [recent comparison](https://lczero.org/blog/2024/02/how-well-do-lc0-networks-compare-to-the-greatest-transformer-network-from-deepmind/) to the latest DeepMind paper, which also uses transformers.
  * A [recent blog post](https://lczero.org/blog/2024/02/transformer-progress/) about the current best transformer architecture.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Cool!  Does Leela still use MCTS, in conjunction with the new transformer architecture?  
  > **username_1**: Yeah they do. They've added some improvements to the core UCT formula and to the selfplay data generation process, but the big picture is still very much the same.  
  
  ---
  
  