Author: Albert Silver
Date: 09:37:57 05/21/02
Go up one level in this thread
On May 21, 2002 at 06:17:17, Sune Fischer wrote:
>On May 20, 2002 at 20:00:21, Albert Silver wrote:
>
>>>>In 20 years, the hardware is only 350 MHz (software writers are running short of
>>>>ideas to continue improving software that exploits the ever DECREASING hardware
>>>>limits) and the machines must be custom made since no one really makes such
>>>>absurdly slow processors anymore. Even the latest Casio wristwatch goes faster
>>>>than that! BUT, we can STILL beat the machines. Ah!...
>>>>
>>>>Looks and sounds terribly silly doesn't it? That's where it would lead to. If
>>>>you limit the hardware to not allow a performance beyond a certain point, what
>>>>exactly are you achieving?
>>>>
>>>> Albert
>>>
>>>What I achieve is an improvement in the software and an interesting competition.
>>
>>First of all, software improvements will happen independently of handicapping or
>>not the hardware. Second of all, machines don't compete, they perform. I've been
>>using this example up and down this thread and I'll reiterate it here: if you
>>race a motorcycle, you may be competing against the bike, but the motorcycle is
>>certainly not *competing* agaist you.
>
>I don't understand your reason for not wanting to call it a competition.
>It is a competition between the brute force method of computers and the chess
>understanding of humans.
The reason I don't qualify it as a competition is that IMHO a competition is
always two-sided: *both* sides compete. Let me take you by steps along my view
of the matter.
Step 1 - I'm going to still REreiterate the above argument. If you race against
a motorcycle to see if you can reach the 5000-meter mark before it, you may be
competing but it is not. You are using legs and lungs and it is using wheels and
cylinders, but that still isn't enough to qualify it as a competition. You're
not going to seriously tell me the motorcycle is competing against you to see
who crosses 5000 meters first are you? Of course not. It isn't competing against
you as it is completely oblivious of you.
Step 2 - Now take a computer. Feed it the formula to calculate PI. Let's assume
you do not know more about PI other than the formula. Run the program and start
calculating yourself, either by head or/and with paper. After 2 hours stop the
program and compare the results. Was the program *competing* against you? No,
competition had nothing to do with it. It just started when you started it, and
stopped when you stopped it. Competition had nothing to do with it.
Step 3 - Take that same computer. Feed it a chess program. You can even disable
the books if it makes you happy as it will change nothing. Run the program. You
make a move, it calculates and after a minute (controlled by its time management
algorithms) its chess algorithms lead it to the move with the highest numerical
evaluation which it displays on the screen. You sweat and groan (keeping it nice
and human) and finally find a move that you believe is good. You play it. It
accepts the data, calculates the position's numerical evaluation, and begins
calculating for the move that again produces the highest numerical value,
limited by the time management algorithms. And so forth. Is the program
COMPETING against you? No, it is merely running a series of calculations that
were designed to correspond to chess moves. It could be brute force, and it
could be the most advanced strategical heuristics on the planet, and it would
still not be competing.
>
>If you allow the programs to use a very large book, a book mind you that
>contains lines founded by the greates human chessplayers in history, it is _not_
>the computer playing those moves. The computer hasn't "found" these move but are
>merely playing from a book, even a child of 8 could play a solid opening against
>Kasparov if you gave him a book.
>This ruins the race in a sense, because which ever humans playes the computer is
>actually playing against the greates grand masters of history, and not against
>the brute force algorithms of a chess program.
If it's any relief, I have the EXACT same complaints in competition as it is. So
does Fischer in fact. It is annoying to have to play against reams of theory all
plotted out and which in many cases extends well into the endgame. I can easily
lose if my opponent, far less talented, simply knows the theory better than me.
Sure, I *understand* the opening better, but what difference does it make? Now,
I'll *understand* all the better why I'm a dead duck. One truism about chess is
to NEVER presume or hope your opponent will be either ignorant of theory or
blind to a possibility you left available on the board. Computers are only more
so. My opponent mentioned above also had no merit in the acquistion of the
theory he spouts other than to have taken the time to commit it to memory. I
don't qualify this *effort* as reason to justify removing the books from a
program.
Albert
>This means the "competition" is not pure in the sense it was meant to.
>
>However, I know all the counter arguments; humans memorize too, computers are
>just better at it.
>The whole discussion about why computers shouldn't be allowed to utilize their
>huge memory, when this _is_ one of their biggest forces is just absurd.
>What does it mean to write a program, you didn't build the computer, you didn't
>write the compiler, you are including a lot of libraries you also didn't write,
>the algorithms you use you didn't invent. What _is_ a program, really, when is
>it _your_ program playing, etc... (Bob may remember he and I had a lengthy
>discussion about this some time ago in r.g.c.c.).
>
>All I can say is, that if you take a program "written by" person X, and let it
>use a book written by person Y (and a whole bunch of GMs), it is not IMHO, the
>program playing the opening moves, the program has nothing more to do with those
>moves than anyone else looking up a move in a book. So is it the program playing
>or is it not, I say _not_ (in this case), but I admit the issue is rather
>complex/boring, espicially for programs like Crafty that will do a search and do
>statistics and book learning on the opening moves...
>
>-S.
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