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Subject: Re: Review of ALEXS by Larry Kaufman

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 06:22:59 02/16/99

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On February 15, 1999 at 15:04:53, Komputer Korner wrote:

>On February 12, 1999 at 19:01:05, Bert Seifriz wrote:
>
>>On February 12, 1999 at 15:26:09, Djordje Vidanovic wrote:
>>
>>>I read Larry Kaufman's review of AlexS on CCC, and I find it inaccurate to the
>>>same extent
>>
>>Yes, it is true, Larry did not catch what actually happened.
>>And we did neither at the beginning.
>>In fact, ALEXS learns nothing. It was CREATED with a learning program.
>>With an AI program the author says.

This _really_ sounds like hogwash.  IE 2-3 months ago I began hearing about
another _new_ approach to ai and learning.  The program was called 'voyager'
and supposedly used 'fuzzy logic' and so forth.  I had a chance to play it
several games on either FICS or chess.net, and it was very strong.  In fact,
it is _crafty_.  Front to back crafty.  Maybe a few eval tweaks. maybe a minor
search change or two.  But a pretty much 100% knock-off of crafty.

When I hear that "an AI program designed a chess program" I _know_ that is
bullshit.  Before an AI program can 'design' a strong chess program, it would
have to _be_ a strong chess program, because the complexity of playing chess
is less than the complexity of designing a program that designs chess programs.

IMHO, this is fishy.  This program may well be an original program, I have no
idea.  But to purport that it was created by an AI program is really funny.




>>The point is the user would like to have the Artificial
>>Intelligence program himself. Mr van Tiggelen says this is much
>>too expensive and too complicated to use in the current
>>status. This maybe true.


or maybe it is 'smoke and mirrors'???



>>But as stated earlier, this would just be the interesting thing:
>>a stupid program which starts learning and then it draws its
>>own rules! Such a program seems to be decades away!

check the web for the chess program named "morph".  It does just what you
want, but it would probbly take longer to learn how to play decent chess than
it would to learn how to forcast weather.




>
>That is why I put it on my Krash list. It is no better and a lot worse than some
>freeware programs. I don't care and any other user doesn't either in how a
>program was created. The "proof is in the pudding so to speak". With little or
>no features and weaker in strength than Crafty, why would anybody buy the
>program? Since there is no way to make the program learn anything it is no
>different than any other artificial or commercial chess engine. Anybody can say
>they have an AI program. Indeed all the commercial programmers say that their
>program is very intelligent. So even if ALEXS is based on AI methods that others
>don't use, to the end user that buys the program there is no difference. The end
>user might as well buy CSTAL if he wants a program that plays wildly different
>chess and is a lot stronger than ALEXS.
>
>--
>Komputer Korner

I only hope this 'the program was created by an AI program' was just a poor
translation to English.  Otherwise, _don't_ buy any ocean-front property from
the guy.

:)



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