Author: Tony Nichols
Date: 04:47:06 10/19/04
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On October 19, 2004 at 06:01:15, Russell Reagan wrote: >On October 19, 2004 at 02:56:31, Tony Nichols wrote: > >> As far as the future goes...Chess is not a purely mathematical game so humans >>will always have chances against computers. > > >Not mathematical? Care to explain why you think that, or why you think humans >will always have chances? Exhaustively searching the game tree seems quite >mathematical to me, and seems to leave virtually no chance for humans. > I said not purely mathematical. If it was it would have been solved long ago. No chess engine exhaustively searches the game tree. Infact, The best programs tend to prune out more moves than the weaker programs. We are at a point where even the top programs sometimes disagree on which side is winning! Clearly they have a long way to go. > >>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. > > >So we're going to move to handicap matches? Or do the humans have to play >without their "opening book" too? > We already have handicap matches! You don't see humans consulting opening books or endgame tablebases during the game, do you? >We could organize Man vs. Machine foot races against automobiles. We could make >the automobiles use solar powered lawn mower engines and square wheels. Oh how >proud we will feel if we win... > ?! > >>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! > > >That's the difference. We humans create these mental crutches to compensate for >our lack of long term tactical vision. You think humans are going to have a >chance because computers don't understand our crutches. That's kind of >backwards, don't you think? > No! Computers have to use opening books because they don't understand our so called crutches. >One day the computer will steadily count down the number of moves until mate >while you snicker at how it doesn't even understand the Najdorf. Again, that >logic seems backwards to me, considering a means to an end as more important >than the end itself. A computer doesn't understand anything. Maybe one day a computer will "steadily count down the number of moves untill mate" but it will start at move 35 of a Najdorf and stop when then endgame tablebases kick in! Regards Tony
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