Author: Shaun Graham
Date: 22:14:57 07/31/98
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>Well if you would assign a rating of 2400 to all of your opponents, why wouldn't >you do this to your program? In fact you do first assign your program a rating of 2400, but then you see how your program a 2400 has performed against all other 2400's to get the new rating. I admit that when the rating system was first >started, the ratings had to be assigned for at least 1 program to start it off, >but now that we have established ratings (SSDF for example) why would we need to >assign ratings? You need to assign ratings only because here the attempt is being more to make the rating calculation more accurate. For instance, you will have a hard time convincing almost any of the computer afficionados here that Fritz is 2580+ ElO. In fact the SSDF makes it quite clear that the ssdf rating doesn't necessarily correspond to Human Elo. So the attempt by reassigning the rating is simply a first step in normalizing the ratings with Human Elos so that computer ratings and human ratings are comparative(for the reason that currently they are not). Because programs only learn to avoid certain lines, they really >don't learn like humans anyway so no rating system will make their ratings like >human ratings. Besides the SSDF list is only good for comparative purposes. That's the problem it's not good for comparative purposes, i wish it was i'm sure you have seen my disccusions on here demonstrating how Fritz is GM strength (which it is). However ,apparently it's difficult to show that using the current SSDF system, because OBVIOUSLY many people don't accept it. If they did when i said Fritz is GM strength because it's elo is 2589, there would be no disagreement. You >are attaching too much importance to the isolated rating number. No i'm not. Ratings are all important, it's the only way to show the relative strength of computers to human strength. Thus it is very important to isolate a VALID rating for a program firstly, so that you can no how computers really compare to humans, and secondly, how so that we can gauge exactly how far along the evolutionary tract programs are. Ratings abhor a >vacuum. You need lots of competitors to have a good system and the SSDF is a >closed shop. No they are not a closed shop, as the data is readily available to be examined and calculated by anyone with the inclination. They have no stranglehold on the knowledge of how to calculate ratings, and if you look at another of the follow ups to this post, you will find that the SSDF is in fact instituting a plan similar to the one the i have suggested(recalculating from scratch, not incrementally). Shaun
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