Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 20:10:48 05/08/00
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On May 08, 2000 at 22:18:37, Adrien Regimbald wrote: >Hello, > >I think that restricting computer engines in a tournament with humans is >rediculous. > >- Some human players is that they are an "external resource". This is >nitpicking over details - a program could easily include such information within >the binary itself. >- Some human players complain about not having an opening book or endgame >tablebases to use themselves. There may be some reasonable argument here .. >computer programmers will argue that the humans had a chance to learn the >openings / endings through books and have memorized the openings / endgame >techniques .. the humans will argue that they don't have perfect recall of this >information > >It seems to me that it is only reasonable to allow the computers access to >opening books / endgame tablebases as needed. Perhaps human players will be up >in arms about it, but it is an extremely unfair handicap for a computer to be >playing against (for example) a GM who has spent their life memorizing the >latest and greatest variations in all of their openings. > >To show how rediculous the perfect recall argument is - if you take this far >enough, human players aren't given diagrams when they play of where the pieces >are best, and humans can't always remember this, so computer shouldn't be able >to have these internal tables of piece/square bonuses for positional evaluation. > If we continue this far enough, a computer's eval would be completely >disallowed, as humans aren't even given piece values when they sit down to play. > >I mean, really, come on - it's quite rediculous. If you took 2 GM strength >players, and you somehow had the ability to take away all the variations that >one GM had memorized, and all of the familiar endgame positions, who do you >think would win? That's exactly what is being done to the computers being >forced to make concessions concerning opening books / endgame tablebases. > >As an author of an engine myself, I get quite incensed when people say my >program is "cheating" by using an opening book. > >What is the opinion of other authors on this? > > >Regards, >Adrien. A computer is nothing but a bunch of stored things already. excluding opening books, databases, learning information, is a knee-jerk reaction caused by the programs becoming so very strong over the past few years. But there is little to argue against... machines and humans are different by their very nature. And the discussion only leads to passionate arguments that don't accomplish anything...
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