Author: Don Dailey
Date: 08:50:51 05/25/98
Go up one level in this thread
Thorsten, I don't believe Bob or anyone else advocates brute force as the only way. He merely points out that so far, it's proven to be the most productive. It may well turn out that there is a better approach waiting to be discovered and I don't believe Bob is "close minded" to this. I don't think a single top program has not been reasonably fast. In fact it appears the best programs are SMART AND FAST! Does that suprise anyone? Everyone recognizes the importance of smarts. I would personally be surprised if it turned out that we should do it just like a human. This, in my opinion would be forcing the computer to conform to our own image of the right way to do it and would be close minded in itself. We should recognize that computers have different strengths and work within this framework. (I didn't say you said this, so don't blast me for it.) But that is not to say it cannot benefit from our own human techniques or that some really elegant solution might not exist that is different from the way WE do it AND our current Brute force approach. We are all looking for this, but in the meantime we will try to produce strong programs. Do you fault us for this? Keep in mind also, that computer chess has evolved significantly toward a smarter approach, just as you advocate. How many programs do not use Null move or something else selective? Things are moving in your direction, but only as long as they prove their worth. I complain about your posts because sometimes I feel that you make it appear you are the creative one and everyone else is in a rut, locked into an inflexible point of view. But even the most brute force of all (Deep Blue), has done innovative experiments that are interesting and forward thinking (like singular extensions.) All the good programmers are solid engineers, intelligent and looking for what works. I dare say most of them are quite imaginitive too, you should not express so much contempt for them. - Don 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 :-))) > >>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. > > >>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. > >>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. > >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? > >It wasn't. > >Lets stop this. It is not important to be right. It seems important to >me to GIVE IT A WORTH TRY. > >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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