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Subject: Re: Kasparov is not a computer chess expert

Author: Prakash Das

Date: 10:04:02 05/04/99

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On May 04, 1999 at 12:00:49, KarinsDad wrote:

>On May 03, 1999 at 20:37:31, Prakash Das wrote:
>
>[snip]
>>>
>>>I am disagreeing with him. :)  On matters of computer chess, he is FAR from an
>>>authority.  The developers of computer chess software (and hardware :) are the
>>>experts when it comes to this debate.
>>>
>>>What I think is really cool about it is we have just seen Deep Blue pass a
>>>limited Turing Test.  The best player in the world thinks that it cheated, it
>>>had to be a human playing some of those moves!
>>>
>>>Dave
>>
>> Uhh.. how? DB team had access to GMs during the progress of the game. Also, the
>>computer crashed a few times during play and rebooted. Which raises suspicions
>>of changes inflicted on it by humans before/after.
>>Kasparov knows quite a lot, he is not your usual Salov mouthing off, or Judit
>>Polgar demanding huge appearance fees even though she is not that good (thrashed
>>by Fritz)
>> Limited turing test.. uh.
>>That's why I stopped posting to internet.
>
>Dave's comment seemed reasonable to me. Although I am not an expert on computer
>chess, it seems (and of course, this is a perception), that Kasparov knows more
>about computer chess than a lot of people, but compared to Robert Hyatt or Ed
>Schroder or Jonathan Schaeffer, his knowledge appears to be very general in
>nature. I would not consider him to be an expert, just an informed user. When
>did Kasparov ever compare SSS to Alpha Beta, or determine how much it is worth
>in an evaluation to take a pawn on the fringe with a bishop?

 I don't understand what this means. Yes, his knowledge is very "general" .. so
are all ours who don't work everyday in the narrow field of computer chess
programming. But the rest of us are not exactly dumbos either. Kasparov is very
much aware of how computer chess works (read his speech he gave at Stanford and
in Oregon recently, which is available online) and he works with chessbase team
very closely. I am not a dumbo either.. (I have a background in some heavy math
science and engineering). And I have studied Claude Shannon's works. Dismissing
people like us is not a very clever thing to do. You may say that we don't know
much, but we (rest of non computer chess people) know enough about the special
circumstances that DB operated - essentially with zero independent supervision.
This is a legitimate thing to be investigated.

>
>As to the limited Turing test statement, it is apparent that the Deep Blue
>programmers fooled either a very intelligent multi-lingual individual who is the
>best in his field with either a program that emulates a simple Turing test (for
>Kasparov to make his claims) or the rest of the computer experts (for them to
>not make those claims).

 Again I don't understand the above. It is not apparent to me how DB team did
that. I mentioned the special circumstances of the match (DB crashing and
restarting, and when it restarted appearing to be playing lot differently in the
way it was evaluating) - this is very suspicious.

 As to your mention of the Turing test, you lost me there. Any form of such a
test was never proved.. there was no independent third part supervision. Etc.




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