Author: Fernando Villegas
Date: 07:39:23 11/23/97
I confess that I have been reading with some amazement the great amount of post published here, in RGCC or elsewhere, in which several ideas are proposed to get a fair competition between programs on the ground of eliminating the so called “learning function”. So, some people talk of games performed without the book, or begun from a middle game position and of course of tournaments where doubles are forbidden. I don’t understand this line of reasoning such as I did not understand the old discussion about how to eliminate the hardware power of Deep Blue in order to get a “fair” competition with PC programs. Such as the hardware of Deep Blue is a constitutive part of his Being and so disabling it has no sense at all, I understand that with even more reason any learning function should be considered a constitutive part of a chess program and to think unfair his utilization is a mighty absurd. Is not memory and learning an special aspect of intelligence in any kind of beings? Can you think of intelligence without learning? Why a learning device should be more exogenous to a chess engine that any other specific device? How about extensions? Or of any device to get faster search? It could ‘nt be said that is “cheating” to win a game “just because” the program search a lot more nod than any other? Whats’ more, the learning function has became something as a known technique that can be used by anybody in the field. Of course, those who does not use it are in disadvantage, but then they would be in disadvantage also if by any reason they were not incline to use, let us say, recapture extensions. In fact, if the argument of learning function as a kind of unfair device and almost cheating device is valid, then the programmer of any low level program could say that for competing in fair conditions against, say, Rebel 9, Ed Schroeder should then disable all the functions that gives such a tremendous power to his program. I don’t understand this and so, If I am mistaken, I wait with anxiety a revelation.
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