Author: Pete R.
Date: 14:29:52 06/22/00
Go up one level in this thread
On June 22, 2000 at 15:02:08, Hans Gerber wrote: >My fear on the base of several observation is that computerchess people do look >down on chessplayers. Of course for the wrong reasons. But it has something to >do with the tendency to confuse the performance of the machine with one's own >capabilities... You speak from a difference experience then, I have never seen a top programmer claim to be the equal of his own program in playing strength, let alone the equal of a human GM. >For many reasons I see no reason for sort of symmetry in the relationships. >Chessplayers are the center of interest whereas programmers and the people in >computerchess do have their own field. For all a programmer is not dealing with >chess on the same level as the chessplayers. > >To make a joke, the mothers of all the GMs do neither unit and take themselves >as equally important as the GMs! Who is important? Chess is just a game. One of the amusing things to me about the internet is how there are millions of little ponds of interest, and in each pond there are the big fish who are revered in that pond, but are irrelevant elsewhere. This is simply the internet mirroring life, but for some people the world's greatest chess player is just a game player. Or it may be fun to try to make a computer a chess GM, but it's just a hobby. Important is a matter of opinion. If a programmer thinks the challenge of making a strong chess program is a greater intellectual endeavor than playing the game itself, that's his choice. But this doesn't mean he is a great player without his program, and I have not seen any such claims ever. >The machines are interesting players in chess, not to replace for training, but >the programmers should stay in the background and not step into the world of >chess itself. In special they should not operate their machines. It looks >ridiculous when the smart programmer is just moving the pieces in order of the >machine's "will"... I see nothing wrong. Somebody has to operate the machine. To you it seems ridiculous, but that's just your view. As for what programmers "should" and shouldn't do in the world of chess, who are you to say?? >Finally it becomes absurd if the programmer does believe >that in principal he himself is now playing the GM simply because he had >programmed and decided wich move the machine should play in a concrete >position. Of course, but you are describing a winged unicorn to me, I have never seen such a programmer in the real world. >Of course they should!! But reality is different. Here in CCC it is possible >for certain people to stop whole discussions just by ad hominem hints... In my >case the underlying attack that I am not even the one who I am! That it would >be making no sense to debate with me at all... Hmmmm. Now that you bring this up, I do recall a certain crazy individual who used to harass Hyatt incessantly on r.g.c.c., a group I haven't read in years. He posted from the same German ISP you use. I have a very good memory, and I confess that when I read you use the word "chessic" elsewhere in this thread the thought of this person flashed in my mind. :) I don't care about your "real" identity, whether or not it is what you say it is, but of course you see that it is offensive to accuse simply based on suspicion, which is exactly what Kasparov did. :) >>Now what does it mean for the event in 1997?? Will you agree with me that if >that is the truth that the secretness and opposition in view of Kasparov's >questions simply made no sense? Isn't it telling that such a trivial fact became >the reason for the whole agitation and dissence between the DB team and >Kasparov. What are your conclusions? Do you believe that the attitude of the DB >team was justified in relation to the fact that prints had no real meaning in >the end? They gave Kasparov the printouts he requested the Monday following the match. He was not satisfied with this. >I am very happy to have you and your carefully put arguments to be able to show >what I wanted to explain for some time right now. > >1. Kasparov did never accuse them of cheating. Please give your evidence for >the contrary. Kasparov clearly implied that he wanted the printouts to rule out the possibility of human intervention. This is equivalent to saying that Benjamin and Illescas may have helped the machine, and anyone else in the DB "war room" would have to maintain silence about any such help and so would also be guilty of deceit. There is no other reason to ask for printouts except to see if they show something other than what the machine actually played, which can only be the case if there was cheating. Just because he did not use the word "cheat" doesn't change the implication. >2. Kasparov is not a scientist. He took part in a series of experimental tests >to see what the new machine could do. However Kasparov had all the right to >believe in the seriousness of the American scientists, the DB team. He does not >bear the responsability to prove anything. He took part because there was $700,000 prize for the winner and lots of publicity! Come on. This was not a scientific experiment, it was a chess match and a big show. >3. The innocence and readiness to cooperate is apparently speaking for Kasparov. >If he just had wanted to chicken out and to find some weak excuses for a >possible loss of the match he would have had many other medication. However he >openly told them when he felt that something strange was happening. Strange in >his mind as one of the best players in the world. My opinion: they should have >taken more serious Kasparov's questions. Why? They knew they were not cheating, and all computers play very well in some positions and like amateurs in others! Look at the recent Fritz games where Fritz could not see the danger to his king, which Kramnik saw easily. There is nothing unusual in this sort of spotty play. The fact that DB avoided Qb6 in game 2 is nothing special either, given that it has some 6000 evaluation terms and is a totally different chess entity than other programs. Kasparov had no *logical* grounds to suspect cheating. >4. The often repeated argument that Kasparov simply missed his chance to make >appropriate rules in the contracts and that later he should have kept his mouth >shut is itself a weak argument. For me the unpreparedness, his naive belief in >the scientists, is speaking for Kasparov not against him. We do not talk about >kustice and the law. Nobody said that Kasparov should appeal to the High Court >in New York. This is all about science and standards in science the DB team >should have respected. No it isn't. This was not a scientific experiment. There was a general ACM Computing Challenge goal to see whether a machine could beat the human chess champion at tournament time control, but it was not a controlled scientific experiment and was never billed as such. It was a publicity event, held for money. >5. What has science to do with Kasparov vs. DB? Simple answer: if you want to >test what your machine could do against a chessplayer you should not irritate >the chessplayer during the event otherwise you can no longer test the strength >of your machine but you are suddenly testing what this concrete human being >could be irritated with during such a match. Sounds easy but seems to be almost >not to understand for many computerchess experts. Irritation is when you at >first reply "ok you will have the prints" and then suddenly out of the blue sky >you tell him "No, sorry, we are not allowed to give you the logfiles". This is a >so-called affront. An insult. End of the story and your tests... At least in >case of Kasparov. There are other chessplayers with colder blood... Come on, you are imposing conditions that simply did not exist. It was not a science experiment. There is no way to control for the emotions of the human player in this setup. Kasparov openly admitted that he was afraid of the machine, for good reason. The gold standard of a scientific experiment is the double-blind, and there was not even the semblance of any sort of controlled experiment in this match. Perhaps you could set up a match among top GMs, yet not tell any of the players who they will be playing against. You also do not tell them that there may be computers involved. The conditions must be set so that no one knows who is playing whom in any given game. This is probably the closest you could come to determining how well a machine can really play technically against humans. Obviously the DB match was nothing close to this, and it was not billed as such. Of course all the psychological stress would be on Kasparov alone. So what? If he were allowed to play the same machine as often as he liked, and the tuning on the machine was not changed, eventually he would determine the weaknesses of the machine and prevail. So what? I should think most chess people believe that Kasparov is actually stronger than the machine, but the stronger player doesn't always win a match. It certainly didn't prove to me that machines are stronger, it gave an example of what I already believe, i.e. that with sufficient power a computer has chances to win even at the highest levels, and these chances will continue to increase with computing power. Big deal. Who doesn't know this? DB put to rest *most* of the doubters that said many years ago that a computer would never even come close. >6. New matches? Yes, you are welcome. But please qualify your machine in many >events before you ask again the actually best human player! Let us see what >history might tell us about the question who is the real loser of that event. >Kasparov or Hsu and his collegues... I fear that it is computerchess as a >whole. Computerchess will continue with or without Kasparov. If one day someone builds a supermachine successor to DB that plays so well that it needs no further tuning, then by all means you can put in on the Internet and have it play the whole world 24/7, and people can study its games, etc. A six game match does not prove that computers have won, and as I said I think most people agree human adaptability will produce superior results if the machines still have blindspots as they still do (witness Fritz's losses the other day). I think right now the game in computerchess is to be able to beat the best humans consistently at long time controls on relatively "normal" hardware. I think even Kasparov would admit that advances in computerchess will continue even as humans largely stand still in their chess skills. Kasparov vs. DB2 was not the end, so I don't think Kasparov should have gotten so excited about it anyway. He just really really hates to lose. :) >Not that I wanted to say that you really needed such extra lessons, but we talk >in front of many spectators... Maybe, but I think any spectators here have made up their minds on Kasparov vs. DB years ago.
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