Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 18:56:15 05/09/00
Go up one level in this thread
On May 09, 2000 at 20:11:26, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On May 09, 2000 at 08:55:46, Hans Gerber wrote: > >>On May 08, 2000 at 23:32:40, Robert Hyatt wrote: >> >> >>>No... because the solution doesn't exist, which means that the logs are just >>>pieces of paper that won't prove cheating, nor will they disprove cheating. >>>As such, their importance is really only in giving us some insight into what >>>DB could do, things that many didn't know (depth, etc). >>> >>>As far as Hsu, you are on the wrong person. Hsu didn't have _any_ control >>>at the match. He designed and assembled the hardware. He (and others) wrote >>>the software. But legal and marketing folks took control because they realized >>>how valuable the P/R was going to be, particularly if DB won, but even if it >>>lost. >>> >> >>Must I repeat that for me Hsu is responsible because he "made" the hard- and >>software, with others of course? My point was that a scientist had had the >>obligation to reflect the mentioned problems and to find solutions. If you are >>convinced that logfiles had no meaning for the question of cheating, then I said >>that Hsu should have found a form of protocol that could give us the possibility >>to examin that. >> That is painting with a very wide brush. As I have pointed out on multiple occasions, what you are asking for is impossible to provide. Within the realm of practical solutions. You _could_ lock DB, the operator, and Kasparov inside a steel vault, with no windows, no external cables, sufficient shielding to make certain no form of magnetic radiation could penetrate to the interior. _then_ you could be reasonable sure no outside influence was being used. But I don't think _anyone_ would consent to playing under such conditions. You could not have light in the room, unless it was battery powered, otherwise some sort of modulation could be used... So preventing cheating was not doable. Providing some sort of 'audit' capability is therefore not doable, by simple induction. If a human could influence the game, it could influence whatever 'log' was produced at the same time, to make the influence undetectable. I don't see any way to prevent such. Nor do I see any reason to spend a lot of time trying to prevent such. If you don't trust your opponent, don't play him. After all, it _is_ a "game"... >> >>> >>>But if the computer is non-deterministic in its behavior, _how_ will you ever >>>prove whether it played some particular move or not? And if you can't, you just >>>lost any chance of using the logs (which Kasparov wanted) to prove that it >>>either did, or did not, cheat. >> >>I disagree. Non-deterministic doesn't mean that the development couldn't be >>analysed and controlled that led to a certain move. If the machine played a >>different move also the files should look different. We will just have to agree to disagree. One classic case from my background. In 1984, we were playing "NuChess" at the 1984 ACM event that year, using a 4 cpu Cray XMP. We were almost lost, and played a very odd/ugly looking knight move. Our opponent immediately thought he could win either of two pawns, an outside passed a pawn, or a center pawn that would wreck our pawn structure. He went for the center pawn, and that knight on B8 was used to take his last bishop (a trade) leaving us with a passed pawn that could not be stopped by the opponent's king. We were _never_ able to reproduce Nb8 again. And we ran it literally hundreds of times. So did the program play that move on its own? Or did it have help? _I_ know the answer, as does Harry and Bert as we were all sitting there and watching, and we _all_ criticized the move as silly. Unless you assume the opponent doesn't know about 'the square of the pawn' and goes for the center pawn rather than the more dangerous a-pawn. How do you 'audit' that? I have seen several _other_ cases where a move was never reproduced. That one one for us. In 1987 in Orlando, we had deep thought beat, but rather than playing the move that absolutely crushed him (he had already failed low pondering that move and we had failed high searching the right move) CB switched to a new move at the last second, one it apparently thought was better. It lost quickly. We could _never_ reproduce that move. And I ran it over 1,000 times during the next month, burning up a couple of Crays every night trying to make it fail again... >> >> >>>You should look at a tournament played last year. In a well-known scandal, >>>someone used a computer program to whack GM players like flies. He was a >>>2300 player himself I believe. He had a TPR over 2600. So yes, humans will >>>cheat, given the chance. >>> >>>As far as "on its own" how would you confirm that? How to be sure that there >>>is no 'access'? IE no rf link, no magnetic link, no laser link, no sonic link, >>>no optical link, etc... >> >>As I said elsewhere comparately weak players would try to cheat but not the best >>players. I don't want to discuss thechnical difficulties without being an >>expert. My point was that in principle such a control should be possible. There is a long distance between "in theory/principle" and "in reality"... > > >My point is that preventing 'crime' is _impossible_. Otherwise, after a couple >of thousand years, banks would no longer be robbed. Web sites wouldn't be >broken into. Computers wouldn't be vandalized. > >There are some things you can _not_ prevent. Sorry for following up my own post. I had to make a quick exit earlier to go fix a computer problem...
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