Author: pete
Date: 15:56:41 07/15/00
Go up one level in this thread
On July 15, 2000 at 16:58:40, Pete R. wrote: >To take a different tack, I'm not particularly interested in the debate about >whether DJ is GM strength or not. When I can set up a position on my home PC, >and it can tell me as well or better than Kasparov can what the best move is and >*why*, in terms I can understand, then there will be nothing important left to >do in computer chess. But that's still a long way off, past the point when a >home PC can supply enough horsepower to have a program beat the World Champ in >match play. Playing good enough to win and understanding chess as well as a GM >are two different things. And frankly from a commercial standpoint I'm more >interested in training software that can do the latter, rather than just beat me >up. > >In terms of DJ's performance, the question I'm musing about is whether a top of >the line 8-way processor general purpose computer may be sufficient to do the >job of beating humanity, subject to some lucky or brilliant tweaks in evaluation >code. In other words, is the matter of coming up with better positional moves >in blocked positions, thwarting wing onslaughts, etc. a matter of putting in so >much *more* evaluation code that an 8-way server can't do the job? DB got >around this by having massive amounts of eval parameters, all done in special >hardware. But the recent performances, warts and all, of top multiprocessor >programs begs the question of how much more horsepower is really needed. This >is simply speculation of course, like most of these topics, but only the >programmers would have a feel for whether they need another 1000 eval terms, or >just better tuning. To add another opinion :-) Current results IMO prove that under certain circumstances "computer entities" like the Junior one in Dortmund can reach GM-like results. It is actually the first time this statement is beyond serious doubt as you can simply point to the results ( and I am sure the next tournaments will head in the same direction ) . So I am happy this happens as this can lead the discussion to areas which are of more interest to me :-) Both the Fritz and the Junior results also show though that the question "Are computers of GM strenght? " is not answered yet . It is a little like the appearance of Sultan Khan in the 20s . A new kind of GM entity arrives out of nowhere ( at least my impression when seeing the setup some GMs choose against it or events like Huebner resigning after minor blunder because being frustrated about a "computer move" ) . Then we see Van der Wiel , Kramnik or Piket . No program is really able to face this approach yet . So as humans learn and computer programs will soon be more usual opponents to GMs in competition they will take them more serious as opponents ( no : this thing is unbeatable or this thing is dumb ) . As you can reproduce just the same dumbness with every program I have seen so far it seems humans should be able to adapt . So : sure comps will rule sooner or later ; but I am not so sure it is as soon as others think as going 2 plies deeper wouldn't have saved one of those games it seems ( and 2 plies _is_ much ) . Maybe approaches like the CSTal ones will sooner reach this level if someone else heads into this direction too . Only a very humble opinion for sure . pete PS : I really am looking forwards to the game against Adams . This should be a test of my theory :-)
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