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Subject: Today's chess programs are trivial opponents for master players

Author: Timothy J. Frohlick

Date: 20:09:04 01/29/99


That is a quote from Earl Hunt from 1975.  Eliot Hearst in "Chess Thinking: Man
versus Machine" in 1976, states that " A computer chessmaster or expert is not
likely to emerge in the near future."  His final statement was more revealing;
" Perhaps our chances of success in producing a computer chessmaster in the
twentieth or twenty-first century depend on how much more "man" we can put back
into the machine--but this time in psychological rather than physical form."

Now we are in the same position in 1999.  This time we are not saying that the
machines can't play at master level but instead can't really compete at the
human grandmaster level.  Dr. Hyatt has stated this in a related post.

The more you say that something can't be done, the more you will have people
trying to do it. I predict that we will have chess computers similar to stand
alone units today that can beat Kasparov at 40/2 within the next 25 years.  At
that point we will give up trying to beat the machines and just bumble along and
enjoy a nice friendly game with a buddy over a hot cup of coffee.

The other alternative is to have chess computer drag races and keep on building
better and faster machines--lightwave computers cooking in the UV range and
computing 10 terabytes per second with 100 trillion move opening books and
similar end game 8 to 9 piece databases.  Of course, it won't prove anything if
our own abilities turn to mush.



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