Author: Russell Reagan
Date: 10:32:01 04/20/02
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On April 20, 2002 at 08:36:39, Mike Hood wrote: >After the Smirin vs Shredder match voices became loud saying "Today's computer >programs may be brilliant at chess tactics, but they are still weak at chess >strategy". I agree with this statement, except for the word "still". My >contention is that it is not possible to give computer programs any strategical >understanding whatsoever. Then your contention is wrong. >Everything is based on positional evaluation and >search depth. If the search depth is deep enough, a computer may make a series >of moves that simulate a strategy, but that's all it is: a simulation; a fake. Not really. How do you think a grandmaster forms his strategy? Do you not think that he looks ahead to some depth, analyzing different lines? A computer does the same thing. It looks ahead at many lines. The only difference is that computers look at MANY more lines than a grandmaster does. The GM is better at pruning off lines that are inferior, so the computer "wastes" a lot of it's time, but it's really fast so it can afford to look at almost everything. You say it's a "fake", a simulation. Yes, a computer simulates looking many moves ahead, but then again so do humans, if you want to get technical. They don't actually move the pieces on the board, that's illegal. They simulate moving the pieces on the board in their head. So if computers strategies are "fake", then so are human's strategies. >Strategy is all about looking at the board and planning a series of moves to >achieve a goal, whether it's a positional improvement or material gain. By your own definition of strategy, computers DO make up their own strategies, and they have done so for decades. >Computer >programs don't do this. All they do is look at the current position and choose >the next move. That's all. That is incorrect. They do just what your definition of strategy describes. They look at the board and plan a series of moves that lead to a goal. Sometimes that goal is positional because it was programmed into the evaluation function, or sometimes it was material gains the program was after, but it does exactly what you described as strategy. Did you put any real thought into this at all? Russell
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