Author: Don Dailey
Date: 17:29:44 07/23/98
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On July 23, 1998 at 18:42:42, Joe McCarron wrote: >Just today I told someone about this Anand rebel match. The fact that rebel is >a program that most people can buy and it was on a computer that was (or at >least soon will be)available to your average consumer is what made me so >interested in the match. This is exactly what my friend think the match was >insignificant. After all, this is a program thats freely available you should >know what the results will be. Of course he's right. Theres no excuse. The >reason we don't know is humans are afraid of computers. >The way I view it Ed and other programers (with the glaring exception of IBM) >have made there programs freely available. Programers have told the world that >they will take on all comers any time any day. So the blame is on the humans. >So just like I resolve doubts in favor of Paul Morphy that he would have beat >Staunton if they played I resolve doubts in favor of computers that they are >GM's. *Any* time a *any* GM would want to set us straight they could just play >rebel in a 20 game match at whatever time controls they want. I just find it >hard to believe this has never been done. Why the mystery and beating around >the bush??? >-Joe It's not so simple Joe. I agree about the reluctance of humans to play but there are some other issues. First of all, grandmasters rarely play serious games without getting payed money, after all they are the best at what they do. I don't fault them for this. I have a feeling it would be easy to get serious matches as long as the price was right. They only other way is to play in tournaments, but computers are not generally welcome. I am on the side of humans on this one. People always expect me to be "pro-computer" on this issue but my program has been in a few of these tournaments and it's invariably disruptive and quite often a small group of humans get quite upset. In my opinion they have a right to expect to play humans. Another issue is that the top players are under no obligation to prove themselves, they have established long ago that they are the dominant players, not our computers. So it is us that have to take the initiative to make matches happen if we can, they have no obligation of any kind to do this. Of course some of them are very interested in computer chess and will enjoy the challenge of testing themselves against us and we will enjoy the same challenge against them. That is what is happening anyway. Keep in mind that the general question of who is better, computers or humans is a question YOU and ME are interested in, but not necessarily them. We cannot require them to be interested in settling this for us. - Don
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