Author: KarinsDad
Date: 07:43:09 01/01/99
Go up one level in this thread
On January 01, 1999 at 01:03:25, blass uri wrote: > >I do not understand why learning during games is fair and learning between the >games is unfair. > >programs can instead of resigning in a lost position and instead of playing when >they see that they win to use only 1 second for playing and the rest of the time >to learn and use an hour or 2 hours to learn between the games. > >Do you think that it is fair? > >Uri I think that any computations (learning, hash table setup, null move searches, whatever the programmer comes up with) done during a game is fair. The sophistication of a program is irrelevant. If a program has a learning mode and uses it during a game, that's fair. Having a program learn between games is like having the programmers tweek the program between games. This would be using CPU time between the games to either save CPU time during a game or to acquire a more favorable position during a game. In either case, the program is acquiring more resources out of game time to acquire resources during game time. This is like loading up a special anti-Crafty book when you know that you are going to play Crafty. If the anti-Crafty book is part of the commercial program and the program automatically loads that anti-Crafty book (as opposed to the ssdf loading it), then it's ok since the original program had that built in as original functionality. I think you are splitting hairs with your question. If I have a won game in a tournament, I can go get a soda while my clock ticks, I can look at other games while my clock ticks, I can do anything I wish as long as it is not construed as cheating (i.e. I cannot study chess with a computer for example). Indicating that a program that is learning during a won game and using most of it's CPU time to learn as opposed to playing the game cannot be considered cheating. Just like my opponent cannot determine if I am thinking about the game at hand or my vacation to Europe last year, it is irrelevant what the computer program is "thinking". It could be calculating the best 10 stocks to pick for the next year for all I care and if it still wins the game, so be it. If the programmers wisely use that time to "learn", great. One of the differences between human chess playing and computer chess playing is that the computers often log what they are thinking. If a human logged what he was thinking, he would be cheating according to USCF rules (you cannot write down anything other than the time and game score during a game). Granted that players often write down their next move, erase it, and write down a new move. This literally breaks the USCF rules, but nobody enforces it. My point with this is that using humanistic terms for chess computer programs is often not valid. Just because a human should be allowed to "learn" between games does not mean that a computer should have the same privilege (similar to the human not having the same privilege of logging thoughts).
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