Author: Tony Nichols
Date: 23:56:31 10/18/04
Go up one level in this thread
On October 19, 2004 at 02:31:54, Roger D Davis wrote: >Several years ago, back before RGCC even existed (before Rec.games.chess split), >computers were lucky to beat human masters. Then the masters fell, then the >international masters, and now computers are as good as most GMs, maybe as good >as all but the top GMs, and maybe somewhat better than the top GMs. Who knows. >The point, however, is that progress is indeed being made, and it doesn't show >any sign of abating. > >My questions are these: Will computers ever become so strong that GMs will feel >lucky even to draw? Will the percentage of GM versus computer draws slowly >diminish, even among the top humans, so that computers will someday completely >and totally dominate? > >Remember...chess isn't a solved game. Perhaps white always win. So as computers >improve, they should begin to win more and more often as their strength comes to >approximate perfect play. But even if white doesn't always win, it may >nevertheless be that if the 2nd best move is made in any position, that side is >lost. Maybe perfect play can only draw and anything else loses. And just which >side do you think might make the 2nd best move...the human or some future >Quantum-computing beast? > >Another reason to believe that eventually even the strongest humans will be on >the losing side: Recently, it was posted that as computers have become faster, >programs authors have actually been REMOVING knowledge from their evaluation >function. In other words, deeper searches are better than explicit knowledge, >this presumably because chess has proven to "consist" more of combinatorial >tactics than of positional strategy. > >Accordingly, it would seem that the humans are the ones with the "horizon >effect" (Surprise!!), meaning that the combinatorial tactics that computers >handle quite nicely just doesn't reduce as much to positional rules as we might >like. Sure, humans might learn a few tricks from computers as computers continue >to improve, but once we've lost the lead, we won't ever regain it. What happens >when a computer regularly searchs to double the number of plies we see today. >Can a human GM even draw such a beast? > >Roger Hi Roger, I believe that most GM's can easily make a + score against the computers. The problem is if you use an anti-computer strategy you will not be invited to these very lucrative matches. I know many on this site will disagree with me but I think it's all a charade. How often have we heard the term "normal chess" when a GM talks about his play against computers. This is their challenge, to play as if they were playing against humans. Many sub GM level players specialize in beating computers. How many of those players are Hydra, Fritz, or Junior going to have a commercial match with? As far as the future goes...Chess is not a purely mathematical game so humans will always have chances against computers. I think as hardware technology progresses we will see changes to match rules. For example; limited opening book, limited endgame tablebases, maybe even longer time controls. All these things favor the human player. In fact just taking away the opening book would eliminate interest in these matches very quickly! Computers do not know how to unbalance the position very well. They tend to play very passive openings or just complete garbage. When a GM plays against a computer in the opening he's actually playing against other GMs. You could a chess program think for a month and it's never going to play the first ten moves of the Najdorf! So my opinion is very much in favor of human players. I think they are still far stronger than computers and will be for some time. Tony
This page took 0.01 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.