Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 21:17:05 05/24/98
Go up one level in this thread
On May 24, 1998 at 23:39:50, Thorsten Czub wrote: >On May 24, 1998 at 21:19:36, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>this is really not worth discussing. Thorsten/Chris/others have one >>frame of reference: "knowledge is the only important thing, if a >>program >>doesn't 'do it like a human' then that program is not worthy of >>anything". > > >If you present the problem in this way, it is really not worth >discussing it. QED. > >I don't know where you got it, but your quote is not from me, and I >don't believe it is from chris. >Whereever it comes from, you and I know that this is NOT the thing I am >talking about. I guess there is an intention behind you presenting the >discussion in such a reduced and misleading way. >I do not comment on this intention. A smile seems enough :-))) > maybe I paraphrased too much... :) but you do mention "finders" and "smart programs" frequently... My point is that a "finder" *can* be a "smart finder". And a smart program *can* be a "smart finder" as well. >>That "frame of reference" has been around since the early days of >>computer >>chess. There's nothing "wrong" with it, except, that over the past 20 >>years >>it hasn't worked *yet*. It may in the future, but it hasn't to date. > >Nobody says that YOUR effort are nothing worth. And it would be nice you >would join our point of view and would also not call chris efforts evil >or NOTHING WORTH. >They are maybe kind of different. > exactly... nothing wrong with "trying to be smart"... just as there is nothing wrong with "trying to be fast"... ..at present. Because we don't yet *know* what is needed to reach GM-class chess.. Once we *know* then anyone trying something known to be wrong will look silly... but not yet.. > >>The other perspective is a fast program, with reasonable pieces of >>knowledge, and reasonable search extensions. Those programs have proven >>their superiority since 1976 when chess 4.0 proved that selective search >>wasn't the only way to win games... And everyone pretty well followed >>their lead for the next 20+ years. > >Brilliant. You were right even before I was born. I thought that the >whole disucssion would lead us to that point. So it remains to in the >end to the problem, that there is no problem, since you solved it, >before it occured. > didn't say the problem was *solved*... just said that *at present* the fast programs are playing better chess head-to-head, just like they were 20 years ago. Nothing says that goes on forever, but it is certainly true today... >>My opinion is somewhere in the middle. There are two parts to a chess >>playing entity... static evaluation and dynamic evaluation. Static >>evaluation is what most programs do to evaluate a "quiet" position... >>things like pawn structure, king safety, piece placement, and can even >>consider some dynamic qualities like piece interaction and so forth. >>Dynamic knowledge seems (at present) to be best handled via a >>tree-search, >>at least that has been the best approach so far. It is responsible for >>shuffling pieces around to reach positions that the static evaluator can >>handle with few or no errors. The better the search meets this goal, >>the >>better the program plays. The question is, can search find quiet >>positions >>or must the evaluator handle non-quiet positions. I believe the search >>can >>accomplish this... folks like Chris don't and try to evaluate dynamic >>stuff instead. >> >>Nothing says that approach is wrong... but there is plenty to suggest >>that >>it hasn't worked well to date... And don't forget... *everyone* is >>depending >>on the search to some extent, which is an admission that an evaluation >>function >>can't do it all... >> >>I'm going to continue my approach... adding new search extensions, >>adding >>more knowledge when I hit something that search simply can't handle, and >>I'm >>sure Chris is going to continue his approach, doing everything in eval >>and >>only relying on search as a last resort. Which will be better? Today, >>the >>answer is obvious. Next year, who knows. I see *nothing* to say that >>either >>approach can't produce an electronic GM. The main advantage is that at >>present, my approach does it with a lot less code... which, for the >>time >>being, I like. I've done selective. I converted to full-width + >>extensions >>in 1978. I won't change back without really convincing evidence that it >>is >>the right way to go... > >How shall evidence ever appear when nobody tried hard to generate it. >Of course when anybody "knows" that it is senseless, a long time before >I was born, than nobody will ever find out if this paradigm works. > try it again if you want. I had a completely selective program from 1968 to 1978... over 10 years of handling everything "special case." The "full-width" approach reduced my chess program from 70,000 lines of code to 10,000 lines of code back then... and it had the "feel" of computer science... My only point is that I don't think that the fast programs, with selective *extensions* rather than *forward pruning*, are heading away from the ultimate goal of a GM-in-a-PC. I can be convinced, of course, by a new approach that performs well. But to date, it hasn't happened. It may... but it hasn't.. that was my only point... >IMO Thomas Nitsche has shown in the 80ties that even a program that does >3-10 NPS is able to get a championship title in a >micro-computer-chess-championship where some of the strongest >competitors participated (Spracklen, Lang, Rathsmann). > >I wonder why nobody of you registered this SENSELESS commercial product >he sold many times in germany, meanwhile YOU favored your way in 1978! > >How was it able to win the title if it was so damned wrong? He never beat *me*... nor *belle*... nor chess 4.x... that was the right approach (in fact, the *only* approach) for that old slow hardware. But once hardware caught up (the cyber 176 in 1976, the Cray in the same year) the exhaustive programs became untouchable... ever stop to consider why *all* the top programs are now exhaustive??? > >It wasn't. > >Lets stop this. It is not important to be right. It seems important to >me to GIVE IT A WORTH TRY. nothing wrong with that... never know when a breakthrough might happen that works... IE Genius has a selective search like none before it. So it is possible... > >Without trying it against the strongest chess-programs, nobody would >know how it could have been. > >PEACE, but not on the chess board. > >>And I'm not going to hold a strong prejudice against those programs that >>take alternative approaches, so long as they show that they can produce >>reasonable results against strong humans *and* strong programs from both >>camps...
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