Author: Michael Neish
Date: 23:21:46 12/15/99
Hi, I'm not trying to be controversial here, or to generate a long list of impassioned replies (thought I'd drop that in first of all.). :) I'm as interested in computer Chess as the next person, I suppose, and it would do my motivation no harm at all to know whether there are any practical applications to the techniques used for Chess programming. So, are these techniques so specialised that they are useful only within the game of Chess and not to any real applications (or even to other games)? Does computer Chess come under the category of AI anyway? Has AI research gained anything from Chess, or vice-versa? Maybe I should drop in an opinion at some point. IMHO the privileged position that Chess occupies within the ranks of games of strategy is due mainly (or only) to the fact that the strongest programs play -- at the moment -- around the level of the best human players. This is not true for Go, where humans are clearly superior, or tic-tac-toe, which is completely solved. Chess is floating somewhere in the middle: a little more complicated and humans would easily be better, a little less complicated and computers would be ahead (if the game could not be fully solved, that is). This is what maintains the interest. Maybe in a few decades it will be the turn of another game, at which human and silicon wits almost exactly match. Surely the question is not as simple as this, so I'd welcome any relevant replies answering any of my questions. Thanks. Mike.
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