Author: José Carlos
Date: 23:46:34 06/15/01
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On June 15, 2001 at 19:06:17, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote: >Jose Carlos wrote: > >>Everytime this kind of argument arises, I have the same impression: There's a >>problem of definition. What do we call 'GM strength'? >> >> A. If we speak of 'quality' of chess (whatever this can mean), most chess >> players will probably agree to one of these possibilities: > >> A.1. Computers are not GM strength because they show lack of understanding >> too many times to be considered GM's. > >This is a tricky call. Who defines 'understanding' a game? > >This is a subjective measure. I can think of two examples to illustrate this: > >a) on Tim Krabbe's pages he sometimes has the topic 'computers can't play chess' >and demonstrates positions where the computer does really awful things (in his >eyes) >So 'computers can't play chess'. > >On the other hand in his analysis he sometimes refers to a move found by the >computer. Often this is a good move the human would have a lot of trouble >finding. 'Humans can't play chess?' > >b) my own program plays several variants which it has very little understanding >of. In one variant is just picks the move that offers it the most options not >to get mated. In another the only heuristic it has is 'put pieces near the >opponents king'. In a way it does not understand the game at all, by human >standards. Yet it is at the same level of top human players. It makes awfull >moves by human standards. Yet it often wins with those moves. > >> A.2. Computers and humans do not compare (like the soldier and the tank). > >I think this holds a lot of truth. > >> B. If we speak of 'quantities' (namely ELO rating), we can certainly compare >> humans and programs, and say _with numbers_ if programs perform like GM's >> or not. > >This assumes you can express GM in term of an ELO rating. I do not think >that is possible, or at least has any meaning. > >-- >GCP Gian Carlo, you've quoted only parts of my post, and you've taken them out of context, and I don't like that. My point was that _if you ask a GM_, he will _probably_ answer one of the statements I marked with 'A'. And then I _suggested_ option 'B' as another option. You seem to imply that I stated all the sentences you've quoted here. But what I really meant (please, read my full post) is that we cannot agree about the question 'are computers GM strength' if we don't define what we call 'GM strength'. So please, if you quote, don't take things out of context, because your answer to my post doesn't make any sense to me, considering the original meaning of it. José C.
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