NYT Story On Go Programs And AI

mykej writes: "The NYT (registration required, blah blah) has a story on Go, the hardest game for computers to play. From the article: 'Programmers working on Go see it as more accurate than chess in reflecting the ineffable ways in which the human mind works. The challenge of programming a computer to mimic that process goes to the core of artificial intelligence, which involves the study of learning and decision-making, strategic thinking, knowledge representation, pattern recognition and, perhaps most intriguingly, intuition.' There are a few throwaway lines about Nash from 'A Beautiful Mind,' although they don't mention the game he invented after getting frustrated with the inconsistencies of go."

Comments

Kasparov and IBM

[natpoor]

The NYTimes is not exactly correct about the Kasparov/Deep Blue match. The IBM programmers studied Kasparov's playing style intensely, and programmed Deep Blue to not just play chess but more specifically play and beat Kasparov, which is a slightly different thing from "playing chess." (Granted the machine could still beat almost anyone, but maybe not other masters with a different playing style.) Kasparov, on the other hand, was not allowed to study how Deep Blue might play at all. I also recall that Kasparov became a bit unhinged early on. So yes, Deep Blue did beat Kasparov, but the problem for it was not just "play chess" it was "beat Kasparov."

Re:Kasparov and IBM

[God! Awful]

At one point, I was trying to improve my chess game by studying the game archive that comes with ChessMaster. After only a few weeks of practice, I discovered that I could predict each move (in the midgame) with uncanny accuracy (80%). However, my chess game didn't actually improve. All I had done was train my brain to be a fuzzy logic analyzer for predicting Kasparov moves against high quality opponents. The basic strategy fails miserably against amateur players (who tend to be less subtle in their attack). One of the ways Kasparov came back to beat Deep Blue in their original match was to suddenly switch strategies to something the machine was not expecting.

-a

Good article about Go and servers

[Antity]

There was a really good article about Go on kuro5hin maybe three weeks ago. In fact, it caused me to start playing again and it still is much fun. :-)

Just try it. There are lots of free Go servers online. I prefer the KGS server. All you need is to download the client or just play it online in your browser with others (Java required). There are usually ~100 people online in the English room (yes, chat included).

It's a wonderful game.