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Subject: Re: Emulating Humans: An Approximation

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 21:06:08 11/01/02

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On November 01, 2002 at 22:52:14, Bob Durrett wrote:

>On October 31, 2002 at 20:01:10, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On October 31, 2002 at 17:00:19, Bob Durrett wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>Solving the general problem of emulating the chess play of "humanity" might be a
>>>prohibitively difficult task.
>>>
>>
>>This has been the "holy grail" of AI since its early days.  But the problem is,
>>in 25 words or less "we have no idea how a person does what he does when playing
>>chess (or anything else for that matter), which makes it _impossible_ to emulate
>>what we don't understand."
>
>Well, Bob H., emulating the chess play of a human is not exactly what the AI
>people want to do, is it.  They wish to make a carbon copy of a human in all
>it's gory details.
>
>Many orders of magnitude different, I would say.
>
>Bob D.

They really want to emulate human thought processes related to chess,
at least for the computer chess/AI purists.  But until we know how the
human does what he does, emulation is futile, to paraphrase the borg.

:)



>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Perhaps a lesser accomplishment would be "good enough."  For example, one could
>>>select a dozen or more specific humans and then emulate them individually.  If
>>>the group of humans selected for emulation were chosen wisely, maybe they would
>>>represent [or "cover"] the entire population reasonably well.  The larger the
>>>group, the better they could represent the entire population of human
>>>chessplayers.
>>>
>>>Suppose someone with a 2800 rating were selected and called opponent #1.
>>>Then someone with a 2700 rating might be selected and called opponent #2.
>>>This could be continued until the rating was so low that there would be no need
>>>for more.
>>>
>>>#1 = 2800, #2 = 2700, #3 = 2600, #4 = 2500, etc.
>>>
>>>The next step might be to expand the list by having several individuals at each
>>>level but with different playing styles.
>>>
>>>There should be quite a few distinct emulated humans at the amateur levels,
>>>since that's where most of the people using the program would be.
>>>
>>>The intent maybe should be to emulate these people primarily in the middlegame
>>>and maybe endgame.  The opening repertoires of the individuals might also be
>>>copied but that might not be such a good idea unless the repertoires were large.
>>> A typical amateur might not have a complete opening repertoire at all.  In this
>>>case, one might be provided for him.
>>>
>>>To select a specific individual to be emulated, it would be necessary to have a
>>>fairly large collection of his/her games played at the desired performance
>>>level.  Such a collection might be hard to find for amateurs.
>>>
>>>How could the chess play of a specific individual be emulated without such a
>>>collection of games?  Maybe general well-known traits of chessplayers at the
>>>level being considered could be used to synthesize an emulation in that case.
>>>
>>>The emulations could then be used in a chess-playing program designed to serve
>>>as a training tool.  People would train against the emulated individuals at
>>>their level in preparation for future contests with humans.
>>>
>>>Clearly, this would be inferior to a full-scale emulation of all of the
>>>chessplayers in the World.  For example, if the number of individuals emulated
>>>were too small, one might "learn" the individual traits of the specific
>>>individual emulated.  After that, playing against that specific emulated
>>>individual might become boring.
>>>
>>>Care would be required to assure that the games would have some variability.
>>>This could be done in the opening, especially.  Maybe a random number generator
>>>would be used to randomly select the openings.  This is surely done by most or
>>>all programs using an opening book anyway.
>>>
>>>Bob D.



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