Author: odell hall
Date: 18:31:30 10/16/99
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On October 16, 1999 at 20:19:25, Stephen A. Boak wrote: >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! Now this is something that I can agree with 100%
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