That claim is often made, and never substantiated.

Just ask any professional Go player.

Anecdotes are not data. Look at the game statistics. There is zero evidence that players are playing at a higher level since the inception of AlphaGo.

It's made here in response to a claim that Go players are made worse by practicing with AlphaGo, which is also unsubstantiated.

Wrong. The claim was never made that players got worse, only that their ratings dropped, which is empirically true. After playing AlphaGo, for example, Ke Jie dropped in the rankings and was quickly taken out of 1st place overall. The overall point though, is that AlphaGo produced nothing of value for humans, since there's also no evidence that players have improved since AlphaGo's creation. Factoring in the immense cost and human brainpower wasted on creating a superhuman perfect-information-game-playing program, and it's easily a net negative for humanity.

"there's also no evidence that players have improved since AlphaGo's creation"

Read this for example. The author is Korean pro.

"The upside is that we sometimes see a player who was somewhat past his prime suddenly climb back to the top, having trained with AI more intensely. There are a growing number of young and new pros who demonstrate surprising strength. This change gives hope to all pros who dream to become number one, and also makes competitions more interesting to fans as well." [0]

There are serious downsides too.

Also [1]

[0] https://hajinlee.medium.com/impact-of-go-ai-on-the-professio...

[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2364137-humans-have-imp...

> Factoring in the immense cost and human brainpower wasted on creating a superhuman perfect-information-game-playing program, and it's easily a net negative for humanity.

Hear me out - what if we learned something about creating AI by creating a new AI?

Assuming a total lack of evidence on either side, I think your assertion is the counter-intuitive one and therefore has the greater burden of proof. Why would Go be any different than Chess?

A rising tide floats all ships – if the best in the world becomes better, others can look at the best and learn from it. What difference does it make if the best player is an AI or a human? The better moves and strategies are still better moves and strategies.

Not AlphaGo, but there are newer neural networks tailored not to crush players, but to teach and explain their playing style, such as Lizzie with Leela Zero.

That's like wearing a baseball glove on your dominate hand and taking it off to throw the ball. It's easier but at some point you need to relearn how to play to make it to the next level