Author: Paul Richards
Date: 09:44:25 06/21/99
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On June 21, 1999 at 09:29:53, Robert Hyatt wrote: >1. Pick any of the 5 programs that played the GM players. I will find a >game where they played so badly that if you look at _that_ game no one would >consider that program to be a GM. For example, take the winner and look at >the playoff game. Three different GM players commented that they had _never_ >seen white screw up the opening so badly... True, but GMs make terrible blunders too. The difference is that the program will make the same sort of blunder until you fix it. >3. I've been working on chess programming for a long time. And regardless of >how they 'seem' to play in many games, I still know just what they can and can't >do. And they are nowhere near a GM's level in 'knowledge'. They are still >surviving on tactics. And there are plenty of GM players that know how to >squelch tactics and make the game hinge on positional play. And there the >programs simply don't measure up. True, but the only real measure of strength is in the result. The relative strength of a human GM is knowledge, the strength of the computer is tactics. You posted a quote from a GM observing a game who admitted that in complex tactical positions Crafty was much stronger than he was. In other words it's common knowledge what the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two species are. They are two different animals with a different approach to the game. But just as we don't dismiss human GMs for making tactical blunders, we can't say programs are "weak" because of their lesser knowledge. Sometimes DB played like a non-GM, other times it clearly out-thought Kasparov. So what? He lost. The sum of DB's strengths minus its weaknesses was greater than Kasparov's total for the match. What matters where ratings and titles are concerned is the final result. >5. GM players exhibit a consistency in quality that computers don't. A >computer will play like a GM for 5 games, and like a beginner for 1. What >happens when the GM players learn what the computer can't do and then >exploit that game after game?. The consistency issue is debatable. GMs play well until they make their next blunder. Computers are obviously completely consistent, it's just that their weaknesses are only exposed when certain positions crop up, so it has the appearance of a sporadic phenomenon. But if a computer plays like a GM a good percentage of the time, it's a GM. Once a human earns a GM title, it can't be taken away, so you don't have to have a great performance every game or every tournament. Once you earn that title with a few good performances it's yours, so by that measure I think the programs would have easily earned their titles by now.
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