Author: Stephen A. Boak
Date: 17:19:25 10/16/99
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On October 16, 1999 at 19:03:41, Ratko V Tomic wrote: <portions snipped> I only said if they were to play week after week, the Rebel's >rating will drop against that tem, althouh, like with coin flips, any given week >result can go up or down, but the average over several weeks would show the >programs downward slide (or same for the average in the first half of the >matches vs the average of the 2nd half of the matches). > >A well motivated human team would, >after some practice, learn the general weaknesses of the program (not just the >opening lines which can easily be varied or learned by the program), but >fundamental limitations, like lack of longer term planning, lack of common sense >The real, durable, strength of a program (a plateau to which it will slide >against you over time) isn't some average of all such aspects, say, a figure >around 2500-2600, which is what comp-comp matches are showing, but it is a >figure closer to their weakest aspect, maybe around 2300. You won't in practice >(unless ypu're especially motivated and stable player) drive them all the way >down to 2100, or whatever their bottom is, since most of us have our weaknesses >and can't consistently handle the pressure of hidden tactics a program may >discover, even when it has become sparser and less hidden and less dangerious >due to our intuitive "defanging" strategies driving the positions away from its >strong arm. Bottom line, a human is a better 'book learner' or simply 'learner' than a program. :) The human is more flexible and adaptive than any program today. At least a human learns faster and perceives (makes up = perceives and applies!) better patterns/rules of play than a program. A human (not even just the top players alone) is *extremely* good at adapting. The brain is wired in a way that programs can never emulate. Programs are inflexible to the max, relatively, although they may have some rather trivial, programmed means of altering selection of book lines or weighting the pieces in differing situations. The human, however, can create overarching strategies that transcend individual moves, weaving a pattern for furthering a chess position that a computer could not dream of. A human, after all, can see a position for the first time (most chess games evolve to unique positions) and apply a 'rule' learned in another, different position, noting its current applicability by analogy (good reasoning). A human can even see a position for the first time and reason out a new 'rule' or pattern for 'how to play' that succeeds in that new position. This is adaptability, this is flexibleness, this is the creative human way of winning! This is the art and practice of chess among better players. This also establishes the bar, the lofty goal for chess programmers--to be able to beat such adaptable humans at their own planning! (albeit via rigid, rather tactical means, rather than by outthinking in the same vein by better planning and strategical maneuvering). The human programmer uses two tools (his own brain, and a computer hardware/software system) to see if the fruits of his human creativity, operating without human intervention on the non-human system (hardware/software), can defeat a human brain alone, over the board. This is an exciting inquiry in which we learn much about ourselves, our brains, our ways of thinking, and we learn how to use the non-human tools (hardware/software) to assist the human (a programmer) to accomplish a task in a better manner than the brain alone. It also means that a computer may achieve some limited success, but it will never 'outthink' the human. It may outplay, yes, especially under limited time circumstances, but that is blind calculation, not doing the same thing in a more intelligent way. I never-the-less give credit to the intelligence behind a good chess program (it is the human behind the scenes I applaud), but little credit to the abilities of the software itself. The success of a program is the success of the creative programmer and the human brain!
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