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Subject: Re: Nolot Positions #1

Author: Bruce Moreland

Date: 17:47:52 11/28/00

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On November 28, 2000 at 11:56:37, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On November 28, 2000 at 11:50:12, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
>>On November 28, 2000 at 10:30:00, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>[snip]
>>To add a bit, here is an output from a chess engine for one of the WAC
>>positions:
>>
>>Middlegame phase.
>> 2    -173     4      525  e5c6 d6c6
>> 2    -173     4     1232  e5c6 d6c6
>> 3    -188     5     1569  e5c6 d6c6 f6h5
>> 3    -187     6     4205  g3g6 !
>> 3    -123     6     4577  g3g6
>> 3    -122     7     6316  f6h5 !
>> 3    -101     7     7444  f6e8 !
>> 3     -17     7     7746  f6e8 d6e5 d4e5 d8e8
>> 4     -17     7     8247  f6e8 d6e5 d4e5 d8e8
>> 4     -17     8    10898  f6e8 d6e5 d4e5 d8e8
>> 5     -12     8    11626  f6e8 d6e5 d4e5 d8e8 a1d1
>> 5     -11    11    22518  g3g6 !
>> 5     383    14    33800  g3g6 !!
>> 5  999996    14    34042  g3g6 d6e5
>> 5  999996    15    34369  g3g6 d6e5
>>Learning score: 999996  best: 36  depth:5  hash: F45FB3C8
>>
>>Notice that it 'found' g6 at ply 3.  Was it 'solved'?  Obviously not.  Why not?
>>Because it had no idea how good the position was.  Because of this, the choice
>>was easily abandoned at later ply.  Given enough time, it found the right move
>>for the right reason and stuck to it.
>
>
>That was my point.  I have no idea how Bruce could interpret my comment as
>accusing the author of the program of 'cheating'.

I take some issue with the mention of negative stuff when there is non-negative
stuff that can be discussed without detracting from the conversation.

For example, someone posts a game, and we can talk about the game or we can
spend three days talking about whether the opponent used a computer.

Or this current case, someone posts a perfectly fine and normal analysis of a
test position.  This analysis is what you see when you run Nolot #1 through any
sufficiently good program.

It would have been fine if you had said that you thought the solution was only
partial, because it didn't produce a win score.

That's what you did for several posts.  But in this post:

http://www.icdchess.com/forums/1/message.shtml?141562

... your tone changed and you started talking about programs being tuned
intentially to find solutions in specific cases where they didn't have a clue.

I took issue with that and only that.  I don't think it's right to start casting
aspersions about people's integrity when you clearly haven't done the
groundwork.

Anyone who saw that human vs computer game and actually looked at the moves
could have figured out that the human really was a human.  If there had been any
doubt, it would have been possible to check the guy's history to see how he
played in other games, and other games showed him attempting to go for the same
kinds of thematic elements with catastrophically bad, and very evidently human,
results.

Anyone could take the time to familiarize themselves with Nolot #1 in order to
determing that the typical program will find the "answer" in a fairly short
amount of time, with a score near zero, without feeling any need to bring up the
issue of test suite cooking in response to PV's produced by a specific program.

>I can certainly say one thing.  I hope he never writes a paper for publication
>in any journal.  Because often the reviews that come back ask for clarification
>or more data, and often the reviewer will give reasons why he wants the
>clarification.  And most of us would _never_ take such reasons as accusation
>that _we_ did the same thing.  We would take them as an explanation for why
>the reviewer felt more information was needed.

I don't understand this but it sounds a little ad hominem, which is not a
particularly big deal.  I'm not taking any of this personally, and I'm not
meaning to be taken personally.

I'm responding with the same part of my belief structure that responds when
Kasparov accuses DB of cheating, or when someone says that Hsu is stupid, or
when someone says that Hsu is something beyond brilliant.

I am not a person who likes to wonder about who killed JFK, and my experience
dealing with people on the net leads me to understand that people are all too
happy to blame virtually anyone for killing JFK.  I haven't seen a big human vs
human event on ICC yet where someone didn't announce that the fix was in.

I don't believe in saying that the fix is in, or that someone cheated, or that
someone killed JFK, or that aliens abducted and replaced one player with an
alien, unless there is good evidence that this has happened.  Lacking good
evidence, I'd at least like to see something even remotely plausible advanced,
I'd like to at least have to stop to think about it, rather than immediately
realize that this is just another internet accusation grounded in nothing.

I don't have a problem with someone else discussing someone's integrity, but
only when the groundwork has been laid.  And in both of these cases, I don't
think that *any* groundwork was laid.

>"I don't trust a solution that has the right move but the wrong score, because
>I have seen (a) programs tuned to choose the right move to improve their test
>result scores artificially;  (b) I have seen programs later change their mind
>and not select the right move, given more time, because they didn't understand
>how good the original move was;  (c) I have seen programs play the right first
>move, but veer off into a perpetual for the same reason."  Was what I said.  I
>see _no_ way to take that as an accusation that the programmer/program in
>question did any of those.  Instead, that is the reason why _I_ am personally
>skeptical of right move wrong score solutions, period.

You also said this:

"There have been multiple cases of programs being specifically tuned to play
certain moves in test positions.  The PV was "close" but missed the important
move that made the score _really_ improve."

There is an implication in there that I object to, since there is no evidence
that would support the notion that Gandalf has been tuned to do anything here.
It's just doing what all good programs do here.  I bet Crafty does it too.

That is the only problem I have with this.

bruce



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