Author: Russell Reagan
Date: 12:36:07 04/13/02
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This is a tough topic, but I'll give it my best shot. I think there are two things we need to consider. First, our top human players are not spending their time studying how computers play chess. Some might spend time analyzing computer games if they have an upcoming match against a computer, but as a whole, they don't study how computers play chess and while they do have limited strategies against computers, the full weaknesses in a computer's style of play may be a domain that has barely been explored at all. Having established that humans aren't really focused on rooting out computer's weaknesses, we can't really determine FOR SURE if our best human players would be able to find weaknesses in the computer's play. If you think about it, you realize that finding weaknesses in their opponent's play is precisely what modern GM's do, so I would hypothesize that if GM's decided to really attack the problem of finding computer's weaknesses, they would find some nice methods of attacking computer chess programs in future matches. The second thing that I consider to be of interest in this discussion is that it seems highly likely that a perfectly played game of chess will result in a draw. If that's not the case, the eventually computers will beat humans every single game. However, since it is likely that a perfectly played game of chess will result in a draw, it is not impossible that a time will come when computer can play perfect chess and humans in turn (learning from the computers) can play perfect chess in response, and every game will end in a draw. That time could also be the end of competitive chess, because if there are a handful of humans who are literally invincible on the chess board, they will draw with each other and demolish everyone else. It will merely be a matter of striving for the goal of becomming one of those perfect chess players. I personally don't see this happening, but there are people in the world much smarter and much more creative than I, so I would not rule it out for a select few. My opinion is that right now, GM's could compete with the top computer programs if they chose to do as you say and dedicate significant time to studying the programs, but there is no real incentive to do so. Unless someone wants to pay money to have this experiment carried out, I don't see why any GM would want to do it. Think about it. If the GM's gather together and analyze the computer's style of play and find all kinds of weaknesses, their work will be meaningless within a few years. The programmers will develop techniques of patching the weaknesses, and hardware will get faster and eliminate some of the weaknesses by sheer brute force search. So unless a GM is just really hurting for money, I don't see any motivation for anyone to take part in such an experiment. The bottom line is that eventually computers will play perfect chess and never make a mistake, ever. We know that for sure (although it might not be in any of our lifetimes). On the human side, we do not know if humans will ever be able to play perfect chess. It's very likely we won't be able to. So the real area of discussion lies in the question, do you think that humans will ever be able to play perfect chess? I don't think so, and when computer are able to, so much for chess :) Maybe we will move on to a "new chess" played on a larger board, or a N x N size board where there are no edges. Or 3D chess. Or maybe real time chess where there are no "turns" and each player simply plays as fast as he can, so the more time you spend searching, the more time you waste. That would be interesting to see IMO :) Russell
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