locussolus - Winning chances

jleaster {November 17, 2003}

a great game of chess is a work of art. the ones that stand up to analysis are few and far between, but they do exist. what makes them stand out is an intuitive leap of faith (generally in the form of a sacrafice) which leaves the position so unbalanced that it becomes almost impossible to assess. game 2 of the 1990 world championship match is a example that comes to mind though it is more than a bit flawed due a prepared novelty. the problem with computers is that this sort of play is going to endure a slow death through their influence. no master in their right mind would gambit a pawn against a computer - by attacking a computer you immediately limit its choices (computers pick moves by examining all the possibilities) and extend the depth of its calculations far beyond the capacity of any human. this doesn't seem to threaten humans who only want to play chess with humans, but it is already standard practice to check all opening analysis with computers, and with a bit of patience and a lot of money (the hardware that's powering fritz when it plays Kasparov isn't cheap) one could easily learn the ins and outs of defending the positions that occur in the most unbalanced openings. as this process plays itself out, the openings that produce the most interesting and beautiful games of chess will, one by one, be 'solved.' the fact that humans are 'teaching' the computers to play chess is cold comfort in the face of what's to come - e.g. games like the one played between Kasaparov and Fritz yesterday. it was pathetic, boring, and as Joel Lautier said, "silly." if a human had been defending the position after move 16, things might have lasted a lot longer, but they would have been just as boring. finally, a group of canadian programers brought an end to serious competetive checkers in the early 1990's. their program narrowly lost a match with the greatest checkers player of all time, and was in the process of winning a rematch when its human opponents health began to fail. since then it has remained undefeated. why not chess? this is where the pride comes in. in the 1950's it was claimed the a computer would never play master level chess. in the 1980's they could never play grandmaster level chess. in the 1990's they could never defeat a world champion. it's simply hubris to think that technology will not eventually outstrip our intelect in such a rule bound environment. its doubtful than any human will ever play stronger chess than Kasparov, but prognostications about the limits of technology are notoriously inaccurate (e.g the airplane).

paul {November 17, 2003}

Hmmm... I guess my point was that I don't understand why having computers that are better than humans (something that seems like a foregone conclusion at this pt) has to mean the end of competitive chess. Can't we still compete among humans? And won't competition between computers still hold some interest? I think you're wrong about the cost of the hardware this latest program uses - it may be expensive, but it's come a long way since the first match of this kind, and there's every reason to think my P3 will be able to beat Kasparov in a few years, given the right program.

But I don't think the guidelines programmer/players are giving these copmputers are necessarily cold comfort - as you pointed out, there's a lot separating human and computer play, and getting computers to play more like humans is a tremendously interesting endeavor, one with implications well beyond the world of chess.

BigOldGeek {November 17, 2003}

I've always been fascinated by the prospect for the race once mechanical thinking is eliminated.

When a computer can better tell you what to do to maximize yield, increase production, or even market and select vendors than any human, what will humans be needed for economically?

When work is no longer productive, but merely occupying, what happens to our culture? Artisits will still be necessary, but what about the rest? Or is this blog and the ones like it (mine included) primitive forebearers of the everyday occupation of our descendents?

jleaster {November 17, 2003}

the point was that human competition will become an empty endeavor: there's a variation of the sicilian dragon (a chess opening) which was hotly debated among masters and gradmasters for at least a decade and in the last year that debate has finally been decided in favor of white. that is, if black plays into this line and white knows what he's doing, he can get a solid advantage at the very least, and in many sub-variations a position that only requires minimal technique to win. the standard of evaluation for positions of this sort has always been grandmaster level play - empirical tests of the positions, but i have an old version of fritz that can find the best lines from any of myriad positions arising from sub-variations in less than a minute. in other words, in any tactically complex opening, you can lead the computer by the nose up to a point and it will solve the position. a decade of empirical tests can be reduced to half an hour of computer analysis. every player i know is already using fritz to check analysis. its only a matter of time before grandmasters will be doing the same (the commercially available software is nothing compared to what Kasparov is playing).

certainly this is all very interesting in and of itself... AI and whatnot, but already lowly experts at the indiana state championship are playing 2nd best or even 3rd best moves to neutralize the computer assisted analysis of much lower rated players. ironically this is how humans used to beat computers.

Marcia Ellen {November 17, 2003}

To may way of thinking, it's a matter of fun!!

That Happy Chica, :)
Marcia Ellen

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