Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: Deep Blue - The Conclusion of the Matter

Author: Rolf Tueschen

Date: 08:45:13 08/23/02

Go up one level in this thread


On August 22, 2002 at 22:35:25, Peter Hegger wrote:

>On August 22, 2002 at 18:19:17, Keith Ian Price wrote:
>
>>On August 22, 2002 at 10:04:37, Peter Hegger wrote:
>>
>>>On August 22, 2002 at 08:10:27, Matthew Hull wrote:
>>>
>>>>2.  Hsu's creations _slaughtered_ the computer competition...ALL OF THEM!
>>>
>>>They did? Where are the game scores? I know that they claimed to have scored
>>>around 90% against other programs during testing, but no game scores exist for
>>>these games.
>>>Are we to simply take their word for it that these games actually happened?
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>>Regards,
>>>Peter
>>
>>I talked to Hsu and asked him specifically about this. He said he did not save
>>the game scores. I listened to his answer while looking him in the eye and I
>>believed him. What do you base your assertion that he is lying on? I am inclined
>>to take a person's word without the personal interview, but in this case I had
>>that added benefit. I don't really care if DB would beat today's programs or
>>not, since it does not exist any longer, but I do not like people calling Hsu a
>>liar with no evidence. If you have some, please post it.
>>
>>kp
>
>Proof? Evidence? I'm not the one who made the claims about my programs prowess.
>But if I did, then I'd surely have game scores to back myself up. If I didn't
>have the scores then I would keep my mouth shut.
>As I stated in the part you snipped, time on a supercomputer doesn't come cheap.
>Atleast not cheap enough to play dozens of games just for fun.
>Peter

As I said the main argument against Feng Hsu et al. is the necessity of
documentation in science or for scientists. It's absolutely basic with no room
to debate. But I see this lack of documentation as a symptom only. Without
concrete data it's difficult for me to judge it but it seems evident that such a
negligence is pointing to a typical difficulty if you are the absolute leader in
a certain field. They simply did it the way they did. They were so much stronger
than usual commercial progs that it was just the expectance of absolute
superiority.

You and me, as chessplayers, we are astonished! The data from such events with
the participation of programs who are distributed over the whole world have
importance out of its own. Even if it was total superiority we would like to see
the gamescores and analyse the games. So we have a second point after the
scientifical negligence. We recognize a lack of chess culture. The recording of
one's games for whatever purposes in future is basic. How could we explain this
deviation?

For me the real core of the issue is the seperation in the sense of isolation of
different processes and a loss of conscience for the general meaning of one's
own behavior. If your focus is concentrated on performance you might be in
danger to lose control over interdependencies with the original field, here
chess. You simply spend no thoughts on the mental states of chessplayers for
instance. That is the same with all research, also the development of the Atomic
Bomb. This known defect of scientific research in combination with the danger
for the whole human race enforced a complete reformation in ethics for
scientists. Only a few percents of such philosophy would have been enough to
show Feng Hsu what the obligations were if he entered the world of chess. I
would say that the whole crisis during the second match in 1997 would not have
happened if Feng Hsu and his team had realized what they really were doing in
the relation to a human chess champion.

Just to keep this short I stop here. I hope that it's clear by now that this is
not a debate about lying or cheating, these are terms for a behavior the team
was incapable of - here I agree at the instant with Bob Hyatt, although I for
one don't know them in person. But we must see that scientists have certain
duties to do.

Rolf Tueschen




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.