Author: KarinsDad
Date: 11:37:18 05/04/99
Go up one level in this thread
On May 04, 1999 at 13:04:02, Prakash Das wrote: >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. I did not make an opinion one way or the other on how DB operated, and hence I did not make a claim that anyone who thinks that it had human assistance is somehow mentally impaired. I personally think that a lot of people in this forum (you included) are very intelligent. That does not mean that I have to always agree with them (I am not so very intelligent). I believe that Kasparov is a very brilliant person. He is very well informed. However, I also do not believe he is a computer chess expert. On one game, he stated "No computer could find the move h5.". However, it was shown in this forum that Junior and some other programs found that move. So, he was evidently wrong. He makes claims and some people take him seriously since he is the world chess champion without investigating themselves. If he says that something is wrong, a lot of people jump on the bandwagon and claim that "Hey, this is strange. An independent investigation should be done. IBM should hand out the logs.". As to his speeches, I read both of them several days ago. I was not impressed with the DB stuff (his ideas on endurance and various political situations were rather impressive). He did supply a good historical view of computer chess in his speech, however, so could a 12th grader with access to the internet. He has had almost two years to investigate the games and the best he can state is that in game 2, the program declined to capture 3 pawns when it had the chance for a better alternative and of course, the program took 15 minutes on that move. So the conclusion he was trying to impose in the audience was that this move obviously had to have been made by a human. What? This is suspicious, but hardly proof of anything. Have you yourself taken 4 or 5 chess programs and analyzed game 2? Or will you take his word at face value? Where are the other experts in the field who back him up in this opinion? I am not saying that he is wrong or right on this. I am just asking for more proof than what he has supplied. Note: It is interesting that the h5 claim was not in his speech. Also, he has stated in his speech that DBs "software and understanding of chess is inferior to other top chess software in the world". How does he know this? Because it may have made moves that he did not consider? He claimed it as fact. Do you know this? Does anyone? For a program that has poor software and understanding of chess, it managed to win against the best human player in the world. How many other humans have even managed that? It is obviously not an inferior program (either that or it is an inferior program helped out by a bunch of GMs like he infers). It is statements such as these which force me to conclude that he is informed, but not an expert. That is my only claim. His conclusions are somewhat questionable and seem more the statements of a person defending himself (and well done since he is such a brilliant person) rather than someone who has really been the victim of a fraud (just my opinion). > >> >>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. The Turing test statement is more of a joke than anything else. If GMs were used by IBM, then Kasparov caught on and the Turing test failed. If GMs were not used by IBM, then Kasparov was fooled and the Turing test succeeded. Take it as tongue in cheek, not as a serious comment. KarinsDad :)
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