Author: Vasik Rajlich
Date: 02:57:06 10/19/04
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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 In a few years no humans will have a chance (under current rules). Computers still have huge strategic holes - there is a lot of progress still to be made. Chess is tactical enough that a 15-ply search compensates in practice for all sorts of strategic deficiency. It's hard to beat somebody who is stronger than you tactically. It's a sort of interesting accident that computer vs human is balanced at the moment. If the game was more tactical, humans would already be crushed and we would accept it as a matter of course. If it was more positional, humans would still be stronger, maybe much stronger. Vas
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