Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Computer Chess Programs & Intelligence

Author: Enrique Irazoqui

Date: 09:30:27 03/14/01

Go up one level in this thread


On March 14, 2001 at 11:43:36, Bruce Moreland wrote:

>On March 14, 2001 at 10:05:05, Fernando Villegas wrote:
>
>>Hi Bruce:
>>I wonder if your statement about generalizing as the clue of the issue is enough
>>precise for the task of approaching it. I am not sure a program that can handle
>>specific positions in terms of a general kind of criteria is "generalizing". It
>>sounds to me more as categorizing. Categorizing supposes that a category
>>previously exist and that there are certain rules to allocate cases inside each
>>of the boxes of the category. So it is, in a dregree, a mechanical task.
>>Generalizing supposes, IMHO, not only that, but to create the category, to
>>discover something common that was not aparent before. So a really intelligent
>>act not only order the world, but order it in some different way.  Of course not
>>all days we can do that, but then maybe it could be said that no all days
>>intelligent people behave as such. A great deal of our behaviours is just some
>>kind of rutine, even if it is high level rutine. What I would accept for
>>programs is that they use some kind of rutinized intelligence, pre-cooked
>>intelligence. But, again, all this supposes a certain criteria about
>>intelligence that maybe is mine but not yours. This is a very open case for
>>debate.
>>Cheers
>>Fernando
>
>Programs take a position and produce a move.  If the position is something
>unexpected by the programmer, in many cases they still do fine.
>
>A human exhibits intelligence when he or see meets a new situation and makes a
>joke about it.
>
>Human intelligence is much more generalized and much more complex, but this
>isn't about whether the programs are human, it's about whether they exhibit
>intelligent behavior.

I don't have a definition of intelligence better than "the ability to
understand", which includes learning and relating seemingly unrelated realities.
I don't consider chess programs then more intelligent than a calculator or a
mechanical winding rat.

>Playing chess is good enough for a program.

To beging with, they don't play. They make exclusively mechanical moves
following a pretedermined and invariable set of instructions. An illustration:

[D]3k4/1r2p3/r2pPp2/b1pP1Pp1/1pP3Pp/pP2K2P/P7/8 b

Give this position to programs time and again and until the end of times they
will evaluate is as a crushing win for black. That's not intelligence any more
than the talk of a parrot.

Enrique

>  So what if they can't brush their
>teeth or have a social life?  A lot of chess players can't either.
>
>bruce



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.