Author: Enrique Irazoqui
Date: 06:48:31 12/12/99
Go up one level in this thread
On December 12, 1999 at 08:49:08, Albert Silver wrote: >Hi all, > >As the issue of SSDF ratings, and their comparative value with USCF or FIDE >ratings, has been a recurring theme and a number of threads have sprouted >recently, I thought I'd share my opinion (self-plagiarized) as I think it is >relevant and might shed some light on the matter. > >SSDF ratings: inflated or not? >Here's what I think: the ratings are not inflated in the least bit. >Sounds crazy doesn't it? But it's not. People get too caught up trying to make >these futile comparisons between SSDF ratings and human ratings whether USCF, >FIDE, or whatever. The point is, and it has been repeated very often, there >simply is no comparison. The only comparison possible is that both are generated >using Elo's rating system, but that's where it ends. Elo's system is supposed to >calculate, according to a point system, the probability of success between >opponents rated in that system. The SSDF rating list does that to perfection, >but it is based on the members of the SSDF only. If you put Fritz 5.32 on fast >hardware up against the Tasc R30 or whatnot, it will pulverize the machine. The >difference in SSDF ratings accurately depicts that. It has NOTHING to do with >FIDE or USCF ratings. The rating of Fritz, Hiarcs, or others on the SSDF rating >list depicts their probability of success against other programs on the SSDF >list, and that's it. It doesn't represent their probability of success against >humans because humans simply aren't a part of the testing. If you want to find >out how a program will do against humans then test it against humans, and then >you will find it's rating against them. The SSDF rating has nothing whatsoever >to do with that. As was pointed out, I believe the SSDF ratings pool is a pool >that is COMPLETELY isolated from all others and as such cannot possibly be >compared with them. > > Albert Silver I think that we don't know much of what we are talking about in this issue comp-comp vs. human comp, SSDF vs. Fide. There is an anecdote of Wittgenstein that comes to mind. One day in his class at Cambridge he put a problem to his students. Imagine that the Earth is perfectly spherical and there is a string that goes all around the equator; this string would be 40 million meters long. Now imagine a second concentric string only 1 meter longer than the first, of 40000001 meters. Without math calculations, only from the top of your heads, intuitively, what would be the distance between both strings at each point? His students answered that it would be 1 / 40 million, or a near zero figure like this. Then Wittgenstein told them that the distance is almost 1/6 of a meter and that their wrong answers showed the value of words and intuitions. Shortly after he quit Cambridge for good and went fishing. Mind you, I also think that without intuitions, whatever that is, exact, verifiable thinking tends to sterility, so from my let's call it feminine intuition (astrologically I am the intuitive cancer, double cancer in fact, soon triple I guess :(, what crap this astrology), and going back to this comp-comp vs. human-comp discussion, I sometimes wonder. To make it short, when looking at the Rebel-Baburin and Rebel Sherbakov games, I "know" that the fast finders couldn't play as well as Rebel. Following the games with Fritz 6 was overwhelming evidence in this direction. On the other hand, why this alleged positional, human-like (?) superiority wouldn't also show up in comp-comp games, so "knowledgeable" computers would compensate with it for their slower tactical speed? Because it doesn't compensate and comp-comp is decided by tactics. Is this "superior" understanding only the adaptation of a program to human playing, with the only value of making human life more miserable in chess, and we believe this anthropocentric approach greater? Is there really a difference between comp-comp and human-comp? So what's up? I really wish we would be less of a flower collector and more of a botanist. Enrique
This page took 0.02 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.