Computer Chess Club Archives


Search

Terms

Messages

Subject: Re: How will engines get much better?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 18:40:13 06/12/99

Go up one level in this thread


On June 12, 1999 at 16:03:53, Fernando Villegas wrote:

>Hi Bob:
>You are right: evolutive improvements over time are the way things has happened
>until now in this field, BUT by the same reason I smell the posibility of an
>uncoming breaktrought. I mean, if you take a look at every technology and
>science, always great breaktroughts are preceded by a long, sustained period of
>time where the main issues of a field seems to be solved and just and only
>improving. It was so with steam locomotives -that reached a great level of
>perfection-, it was so with pre-einstein physics, it was so with every
>machinery, technique and body of ideas that have ever been created. In fact is
>that same evolution that prepares the road to breaktrought as much the evolution
>develops all chances hidden in a  previous revolutionary idea.
>Course, we have the issue about how much is breaktrought. In that and in
>relation with chess computers, you and other programmers here have the word, not
>lay as me, but then i would like to ask you which you believe could be a
>possible breaktrought.. Maybe pattern recognition of key positions as GM do?
>Greetings from Chile
>fernando


This is an interesting issue.  For me, a 'breakthrough' is not needed, because
our present approach has shown that it _can_ beat GM players.  We are now almost
unbeatable at blitz games, very difficult to beat at game/30 games, and are
getting better at 40/2hr.  Since I am interesting in beating humans, I don't
see any need to become 'selective'. IE I see no evidence that says "before you
can beat the best humans, your program has to "think" like the best humans and
only look at a few moves per position."  I believe that the current approach
will evolve into something humans can only rarely hope to beat...

It seems obvious that a computer _can_ become better in a revolutionary
way, bu examining much smaller trees.  IE if we could reduce the branching
factor to < 2, computers would ahve a chance to effectively 'solve' the
game at today's speeds.  But such an approach is difficult.  And it is a
really long way off from becoming a reality because no one is working on it
in a serious way any longer, since the full-width approach has shown itself to
be so effective...



This page took 0 seconds to execute

Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700

Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.