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Humans Hold Off the Machines... For Now
Murr writes "The six game match between Gary Kasparov and the Deep Junior program ended in a draw today. Kasparov won game 1 and lost game 3 to a blunder, while the other 4 games were drawn. While the quality of play was not outstanding, after the recent matches of Kramnik and Kasparov against commercial programs running on (high end) commodity hardware, it's becoming apparent that chess programs are getting quite competitive with top human players."
While computer programs that can play chess are quite sophisticated, Go is a really cool game that is very difficult to play well (from a computer's perspective). I think computer vs human Go matches would be much more interesting now,
-Sean
Is it just me, or is it silly to only do 6 games, so there was a possibility of a tie? Another game would have been the decision-maker. Then again, the pressure put on Kasparov might have been excessive, since obviously the computer wouldn't have to deal with ANY pressure...just another game.
I should think so, especially when the computer is programmed in part by chess experts, and plays more like a chess player than a computer.
From the NY Times:
I watched this last night on ESPN or ESPN2.
The reason Kasparov gave for the match, and the championship ending in a draw was that it was better to draw than to lose.
He claimed that while a human player would have the memories of past moves and past games to deal with, the computer would not. The computer simply makes the 'best' move for the given situation, and then waits to do the same thing again. The human player would consider moves he/she made in the past, compare the situation to others they may have had, second-guess the moves they might have made, and so forth.
It was interesting to see Kasparov attack, and then ask for a draw (which was denied) and then, two moves later, end the game in a draw.
Ever Onward, Forward Bound
Kasparov was probably tired after 5 games, and perhaps was afraid of making a blunder. Deep Junior on the other hand would be playing just as well as in the first game.
:-)
I think Kasparov should have continued and shown the machine who's boss
Good to see it was televised too - all good for getting more people into chess.
I think that human chess is still qualitatively better than computer chess. Exhaustion was a big factor in this last match up. The computer didn't feel it, but Kasparov did. Therefore the outcome doesn't tell us much about the level of the chess. If Kasparov could have played fresh every game, my guess is that his chess would have been better.
Human chess has qualities that computer chess still can't match up to. If we were really interested in measuring the level of computer chess we'd try to eliminate for factors such as weariness or stress as best we could. After all, chess is something more than that. We already know that computers will out-endure humans and there is nothing to be learned there.
Something of a chess novice, I watched this game on ESPN2 yesterday, and I was very confused that Kasparov offered Deep Junior a draw immediately after his rook sacrifice. ESPN's analyst thought, and I agreed, that Kasparov was in a relatively strong position. However Kasparov spent 15 minutes debating that sacrifice. Did he see something nobody else saw? Does anybody here know why he offered a draw, why Deep Junior rejected the offer, and why they agreed to draw a couple of moves later?
My other sig is also a
"While the quality of play was not outstanding"
Just what are we comparing this to? Isn't Kasparov one of the top players in the world, if not the very top? I've read in some articles that he's considered by some to be the best player ever.
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
I'd be very interested in seeing a match between Kasparov using a computer and Deep Junior. This would allow him to access an opening move database, and end game database and do enough analysis to avoid blunders.
Kasparov suggested this after his match with Deep Blue. I predict that a computer augmented GM would hold out against a computer opponent for many years to come.
1. Until very recently, end games have been the weak point of computer programs. Not withstanding end-game databases, which allow them to play a few endings perfectly, they have trouble making plans if there are more than a half-dozen pieces on the board. Recently, they've gotten a lot better, but they are still far from perfect.
2. Openings should be a strong point for computers, but Gary got an advantage in the opening in *every* game in the match. As you point out, the problem for computers is that humans look at their opponents openings, try to figure out weak points, and prepare traps for their opponents. Computers don't do this yet.
3. As you say, in the middle game, computers display a strange dichotomy. In quiet positions, they make stupid moves. E.g., in a couple games with Gary the computer played h3 (P-KR3), a move that had nothing to do with the game and weakened the kingside. On the other hand, they are deadly tacticians. Once Gary commited to an attack, things became tactical and the computer was very tough to beat; it found lots of weird-looking defenses that just barely worked.
Yes Go breaks down in ways that are a mess to evaluate currently. But think about it: thirty years ago a human beating chess computer would be only on an episode of Star Trek. And I mean beating ANY human.
:)
Now computers can hold their own to the top Grandmasters of chess.
If in ten years computers started to gain against Go playing humans I'm sure someone would try to find another game that computers suck in and say "I think computer vs human GameX matches would be more interesting".
Just don't let the last man vs machine game be between John Conner vs machine!
Here in the US, the sixth and final match was televised on the cable channel ESPN 2. I was channel surfing and I happened to stumble across it. To my surprise, it was actually quite interesting to watch on TV.
I am not a big chess freak, so I would have guessed that watching chess would be a lot like watching paint dry. However, it was made interesting by the "play-by-play" analysts who were chess masters themselves. They did a good job of explaining the moves, and also the psychology and strategy of chess at the grand master level. It really gave me a lot of insight into what goes on at when chess is played at such a high level.
After the match ended in a draw, they interviewed Kasparov. It was interesting to get his reaction to the match. Basically, his goal for the game was to "not lose", which is why he offered a draw from a very strong position. He didn't want to take a chance of making a blunder like he did in the third game of the match.
It seemed like the key advantage that the computer has in this situation is the fact that it doesn't have an ego to deal with. After losing to Deep Blue in 1997, it seemed like Kasparov was very afraid of losing to another computer in such a high-profile match. That definitely affect the way he approached the game.
The computer, on the other hand, is just calculating moves, so psychology doesn't factor into how it plays. To me, this seems like the biggest advantage that a computer has over a human player.
Also, he seemed to have more respect for this computer program than he did for Deep Blue. Apparently, he had a lot of problems with Deep Blue and how the 1997 match was handled. It could be sour grapes, of course, so I took his comments with a grain of salt.
...I wanna see him beat me at monopoly.....to buy or not to buy? :-)
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
Surely a chess computer is only as good as the person who programmed it?
;-) humans. Do we stage races between machines and humans? No, we race machines against (similar) machines and humans against humans, and nobody feels shame because some machine can run faster.
Any by the same reasoning, an auto can only run as fast as the mechanics who designed and built it. And a telescope can only see as far as the people who ground the lenses (or mirrors).
This whole thing is rather silly. And it'll end when we have software that can always beat a human.
After all, 200 years ago it was probably obvious that the ability to do arithmetic was a "uniquely human" thing. Then someone invented a mechanical calculator. Suddenly arithmetic became a merely mechanical capability that didn't imply superiority at all.
We have machines that can out run (and outfly
As soon as a computer can routinely beat a human at chess, we will give up machine-human chess competitions in the same way, and we will only compete with each other. Just like running and other competitions where we would always lose.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
One thing people don't seem to realize is that Deep Junior was a hell of a lot slower than Deep Blue, even though the Deep Blue match was over 5 years ago. That's because Junior was running on "ordinary" commodity hardware (8-way Xeon I think?) while Blue was a collection of hundreds of custom ASICs that do nothing but calculate chess moves. End result: Blue could search and evaluate ~200 million positions per second, while Junior as configured in this match "only" did ~3 million.
Nonetheless, Junior was almost certainly the better player. For one thing, the terms of the Deep Blue match were heavily tilted against Kasparov: he didn't get a chance to play against Deep Blue or even examine any games Deep Blue played before the match. For another, strategies of "anti-computer" chess are far more developed today than in 1997, when they barely existed (after all, the only way to build a world-class chess playing computer in 1997 was to build a supercomputer out of custom hardware). Third, Kasparov screwed up much more seriously in the 1997 match--one game he accepted a draw when he in fact had a provable win, apparently because he trusted the computer's evaluation of the position, and on several occasions he made terrible blunders.
Indeed indications are that even the normal Junior program on a decent PC plays the Kasparov-Blue games better than Blue did (except for a couple especially "brilliant" moves on Blue's part).
Not only is Junior (marginally) the best computer program available today, it is by a good measure the "most human-like". That is, it is still makes its share of "non-human" moves (although far fewer than Deep Blue), and still has no clue how to analyze certain positions, but its evaluation function has a much better understanding of position and is thus more willing to initiate complex piece exchanges than the other major programs. This showed up several times during the match, in two outstanding moves in particular (which netted come-from-behind draws for Junior in games 4 and 5).
Kasparov, by taking Junior out of its opening book, was able to exit the opening phase with the initiative in every single game. But in every game except for 1 and 6, Junior managed to draw even. In games 2 and 3, it was by virtue of outstanding tactical defense, which should have forced two draws (except that Kasparov screwed up the end of game 3 and lost). In game 5 it was with a shocking bishop sacrifice counterattack (extremely uncomputer-like) which nullified Kasparov's last turn as white (which is an advantage).
Perhaps game 4 is the best synopsis of the state of Junior's play. Kasparov played the opening perfectly according to plan, and ended up in a classic anti-computer position. Normally you can then just wait for the computer to screw up and then rip it apart. But while Junior did make a couple useless non-human moves, for the most part it played extremely well. Kasparov kept waiting to have an opportunity (perhaps too long), until finally Junior broke open the position by initiating an excellent multi-piece exchange. Kasparov had to settle for a draw.
OTOH, Junior had no idea what was going on in the endgame. Kasparov had a provable draw after move 47, but Junior, having no idea how to evaluate the position (no computer program does), thought it was winning. It played on until move 61 before the embarrassed programmers overruled the program and took the draw.
Overall, it seems that computers still have a ways to go before they can pass the Grandmaster Turing test. And it seems Kasparov really did just chicken out by accepting the draw in game 6. But the fact remains that Kasparov played quite well (for the most part) and simply couldn't convert his advantage in any game after the first. Meanwhile, while it still made a few computer-like moves that stuck out like sore thumbs, for the most part Junior played very solid chess with occasional strong speculative moves that would be aggressive even for a human.