Author: Ricardo Gibert
Date: 07:29:04 12/12/99
Go up one level in this thread
On December 12, 1999 at 09:48:31, Enrique Irazoqui wrote: >On December 12, 1999 at 08:49:08, Albert Silver wrote: > >>Hi all, >> >>As the issue of SSDF ratings, and their comparative value with USCF or FIDE >>ratings, has been a recurring theme and a number of threads have sprouted >>recently, I thought I'd share my opinion (self-plagiarized) as I think it is >>relevant and might shed some light on the matter. >> >>SSDF ratings: inflated or not? >>Here's what I think: the ratings are not inflated in the least bit. >>Sounds crazy doesn't it? But it's not. People get too caught up trying to make >>these futile comparisons between SSDF ratings and human ratings whether USCF, >>FIDE, or whatever. The point is, and it has been repeated very often, there >>simply is no comparison. The only comparison possible is that both are generated >>using Elo's rating system, but that's where it ends. Elo's system is supposed to >>calculate, according to a point system, the probability of success between >>opponents rated in that system. The SSDF rating list does that to perfection, >>but it is based on the members of the SSDF only. If you put Fritz 5.32 on fast >>hardware up against the Tasc R30 or whatnot, it will pulverize the machine. The >>difference in SSDF ratings accurately depicts that. It has NOTHING to do with >>FIDE or USCF ratings. The rating of Fritz, Hiarcs, or others on the SSDF rating >>list depicts their probability of success against other programs on the SSDF >>list, and that's it. It doesn't represent their probability of success against >>humans because humans simply aren't a part of the testing. If you want to find >>out how a program will do against humans then test it against humans, and then >>you will find it's rating against them. The SSDF rating has nothing whatsoever >>to do with that. As was pointed out, I believe the SSDF ratings pool is a pool >>that is COMPLETELY isolated from all others and as such cannot possibly be >>compared with them. >> >> Albert Silver > >I think that we don't know much of what we are talking about in this issue >comp-comp vs. human comp, SSDF vs. Fide. > >There is an anecdote of Wittgenstein that comes to mind. One day in his class at >Cambridge he put a problem to his students. Imagine that the Earth is perfectly >spherical and there is a string that goes all around the equator; this string >would be 40 million meters long. Now imagine a second concentric string only 1 >meter longer than the first, of 40000001 meters. Without math calculations, only >from the top of your heads, intuitively, what would be the distance between both >strings at each point? His students answered that it would be 1 / 40 million, or >a near zero figure like this. Then Wittgenstein told them that the distance is >almost 1/6 of a meter and that their wrong answers showed the value of words and >intuitions. Shortly after he quit Cambridge for good and went fishing. Only 1/6 of a meter? If that is what he really said, that is an extremely funny story! > >Mind you, I also think that without intuitions, whatever that is, exact, >verifiable thinking tends to sterility, so from my let's call it feminine >intuition (astrologically I am the intuitive cancer, double cancer in fact, soon >triple I guess :(, what crap this astrology), and going back to this comp-comp >vs. human-comp discussion, I sometimes wonder. To make it short, when looking at >the Rebel-Baburin and Rebel Sherbakov games, I "know" that the fast finders >couldn't play as well as Rebel. Following the games with Fritz 6 was >overwhelming evidence in this direction. On the other hand, why this alleged >positional, human-like (?) superiority wouldn't also show up in comp-comp games, >so "knowledgeable" computers would compensate with it for their slower tactical >speed? Because it doesn't compensate and comp-comp is decided by tactics. Is >this "superior" understanding only the adaptation of a program to human playing, >with the only value of making human life more miserable in chess, and we believe >this anthropocentric approach greater? Is there really a difference between >comp-comp and human-comp? So what's up? I really wish we would be less of a >flower collector and more of a botanist. > >Enrique
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