Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 21:34:28 06/18/99
Go up one level in this thread
On June 18, 1999 at 08:19:14, Dan Homan wrote: >On June 17, 1999 at 22:08:24, Fernando Villegas wrote: > >>Hi Dan: >>You are right, of course, but there is a practical point regarding the nature of >>a test that must be taken into account; his meaning in terms of human >>usefulness. The example of you race is good precisely to show that: the >>experiment would be right as a test of the fastest vehicle on wheels, but >>meaningless, preposterous and something to laugh at. Experiments must be not >>only logical, but to have a sense. You, as a scientis, know that very well; you >>prepare an experiment not just because it can be done in his own terms, but to >>probe something that is important for human purposes, theoretic or practical. >>Then, when people talks of the sense of this tournament where programs are >>running in monster kind of hardware, what probably they try to say is that the >>experiment, even if logical, is not meaningful for his necesities and in fact >>for almost 99% of people that uses chess programs. What is meaningful for us is >>what has a relation with our practice. Monsters running at 800 Mhz or so are not >>reachable for common folk and so the test is meaningless in that specific but >>very important aspect. Logic is not all and becomes ridiculous without a dosis >>of common sense. Fact is that we are not going to conclude nothing of the >>results of this tournaments not only because the few rounds, but because the >>brute force being used into it. >>Cheers >>fernando > >Yes, once one understands the question to be answered by an experiment, >they are free to think that the question itself is a silly one and the >experiment should never have been done. > >If people think that having a competition to find the best artifical >chess player is a silly thing to do, that is fine with me. I don't think >anyone has ever claimed that we can use these results to help us do >anyting useful..... In this case it is purely for fun! > >Of course, I suppose that no chess tournament is useful in a practical >sense.... they are all for entertainment. > > - Dan > >P.S. I know that one of Melvin's concerns is that the results of >this tournament will be mis-used by the winners, but mis-use of the >results of the competition will not be the fault of the competition >itself. The results of any test can be mis-used. Hopefully the winners >will also advertise the hardware they ran on to get the title.... it >might even be a smart advertising strategy if they are a 1 or 4 processor >machine that beats some of the 100+ processor monsters. I don't understand the issue. The WMCCC is a fairly uniform platform event every year, with only one cpu per program, and it must be a commercially- available processor at a commercially-available clock speed. The WCCC has _never_ been about answering that question. It has simply asked "what is the strongest chess automaton on the planet?" Without the "on equal hardware" stipulation inserted...
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.