Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 10:24:25 10/18/00
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On October 18, 2000 at 05:47:21, Graham Laight wrote: >It's a shame this post was in response to the wrong thread. To save people >having to jump between threads, I've reproduced the plan at the end of this >post. > >On October 17, 2000 at 13:46:02, Bruce Moreland wrote: > >>Your proposal is the same sort of nonsense that you've been promoting for the >>past several years, and I'll give you the same sort of response I've given you >>for the past several years. > >You make it sound like you're an expert! :) You've posted the same kind of thing several times. The idea you posted in r.g.c.c. some years ago was: 1) Build a collection of patterns and plans. 2) Figure out what pattern applies. 3) Make the appropriate move. This is terrible on the surface, and the reason is that chess doesn't work like this. Chess positions are organic. You don't just identify pattern and do appropriate thing. That is what it might feel like in some cases, but there is a tremendous amount of discrimination going on in order to realize that it is safe or logical to push down a particular path. I think the only reason that you haven't rejected this is that you haven't really tried to do it. Another argument I used against this last time is that if you can do all of this, there's no reason to rely on a bunch of set-piece situations, you can just have the thing determine its own plans. If you add this enhancement, your idea boils down to: Understand chess and do the right thing. That is not particularly helpful. Your new idea is: Teach yourself chess. That is not particularly helpful either. I have one or two more comments interspersed below. >>Some of the steps toward your solution are important enough that if those steps >>could be completed, chess wouldn't be anywhere near the most interesting problem >>to use those tools on. Your "practical" plan calls for enormous work and >>several major breakthroughs in AI. > >Where? Why? I can't cope with this at the moment. >It's all very well to make sweeping generalisations, but the discussion would be >SO much more meaningful if only we knew what these generalisations referred to. > >>Several of your steps are described in a few sentences, but the amount of work >>involved to solve then would be national in scale, if they are solvable by >>hmans at all in a practical time-frame. > >Like the brilliant, well planned, well funded scientific project to evolve >humans from chimpanzees, for example? Any project proposal that describes itself as "practical and implementable", and uses as proof of concept that humans evolved from lower primates over a period of several million years, and suggest emulating that, would seem a bit to ambitious to merit the adjectives "practical and implementable". >>And tying together these monumental tasks is a plan that could have been devised >>by any vaguely technical person during their first few moments of thought about >>the problem. > >The plan is a first draft - it's not meant to be the finished design. Any >suggestions for refinements in the plan cordially welcomed. This isn't a rough draft. This is the whole thing. You've added the bit about learning, but this is the same thing you have been talking about for like five years. I would like to be charitable and say that there are some good ideas in here, and that perhaps someone will be inspired by something in here and do something practical, but I don't think I can say that. The idea that you can understand chess, make moves based upon known plans, and learn from your mistakes, is very superficial. Everyone starts from that point, then immediately realizes, since they want to actually build something, that this is too ambitious and needs to be simplified. If you could actually *do* something from this starting point, you'd be in great shape, but you don't do anything, you just bring up these same issues every once in a while, and think that this puts you in some sort of visionary position on top of the computer chess field. Do something, anything. Any research at all rather than "above the field" proposals. Make some practical progress, no matter how slight. Then I will be able to respond to your next proposal is much more constructive fashion. bruce >At the start of the plan, the first line says it's a first draft. > >>bruce > >This post reminds me - you still owe me a beer, by the way! > >Copy of the plan: > >The purpose of this is to build a program that can teach itself to do a good job >of evaluating chess positions, using only technology that is available today, >and can be applied on a PC which can be bought off the shelf today. > >Steps to building a self learning chess machine - 1st draft: > >* assemble a collection of evaluation components. There should be sufficient >eval components to be able to theoretically evaluate any position, if combined >correctly > >* set up a genetic algortithm to be able to combine these components into a >single evaluation function, and to be able to vary them from game to game > >* write a program that can "categorise" chess positions, and come up with a >measure of "similarity" between them > >* assemble a collection of categorisation components > >* set up a genetic algorithm to to be able to combine these components into a >single categorisation function, and to be able to vary them from game to game > >* new categories and evaluation functions can be made by combining components >from existing evaluation functions (chosen for their "similarity"), when the >"similarity" between the new position and existing categories is sufficiently >small > >* seed the system with some categories > >* seed the system with a categorisation function that works > >* seed the system with working eval functions suited to the categories > >* ensure the system is clever enough to get to check-mate from the 1st game of >the experiment > >* start the system playing against another copy of itself > >* During the game, every legal move will be evaluated (1 ply) and the best one >chosen > >* when the system loses a game, it must evolve. From the move list, the >evaluation function used prior to the eval score falling will be subjected to >the genetic algorithm, as will the categorisation > >There is a problem in computer chess that the problem may have occured before >the evaluation started to fall. In this system, the problem will be solved >because, with sufficient play, the poor evaluation will eventually make its way >back to the source of the problem (though other eval functions will temporarily >be messed up on the way!). > >It took roughly 400,000 generations to change chimpanzees into humans (based on >average generation of 15 years - a number I admit I've plucked out of the air, >but which is at least the right order of magnitude). > >Could 400,000 generations of the above system produce a great chess player? > >Comments please! > >-g
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