Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Chess Championship: Humans vs. Computer

Posted by timothy on from the invaders-in-the-human-castle dept.

An anonymous reader writes "X-bit labs has posted very interesting editorial called "Chess Championship: Humans vs. Computer". During the last 10 years computers penetrated into various spheres of human life. In this article guys try to find out how well computers can play chess and if it would be correct to say that artificial intelligence is superior to human mind. Interesting read."

9 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. The future of chess by Jonin893 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The First "Cyborg Championship"?
    Meanwhile, Garry Kasparov has arranged for an exhibition match with 23 year old GM Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria for June in which both players will have an (identical) laptop computer that they may consult during the games. The laptops will have databases preloaded by each player (therefore containing their own analysis and selections), as well as a tactical engine. Each game of the 6 game match will last only one hour, meaning that a large part of the strategy will be how much time spend on the computer! A number of analysts are calling this the "First 21st Century World championship" although of course it's only an exhibition.     (http://www.uschess.org/clife/issue47/buzz.html)
    It's from 1997, but I think they're right. The future does seem to be moving in that direction.

    I recall reading an interview with former world chapion karpov who said that when he was learning chess, his teacher said that one day it would all be computers. One of the other students said, "So why are we bothering to do this then?" and the coach replied, "My computer will beat your computer." or something like that. Pretty soon it'll all be down to which computer is better and which person can better control it. I'm sorry I can't better quote the interview. It was in the ChessLife about the Karpov v. Kasparov x3d match in Times Square in case anyone has it.

  2. Re:Interesting, but... by DavidpFitz · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I agree with you. After studying AI as an undergrad for 4 years, I came to the conclusion that carrying out well defined tasks is not a subject matter for AI. Chess rules are extremely well defined, and as such all that is being carried out is a search - this is not AI.

    Learning to understand English is altogether different -- Language has a very complex set of very loosely defined rules which change over time, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Understanding English is very much an AI task.

    The problem is knowedge, and how it should be represented -- with Chess you just need a big calculator and present as much of the game (projected) as possible. There is no such way to do this with language... a much more complex representation with much more hueristic knowledge is required, and this is where AI starts coming in. Natural language processing is a very tricky field, one which I won't even pretend I understand, and in my opinion nobody quite does... Chomsky probably coming closest, but then again I'd disagree with him on many points!!

    D.

  3. It's been said... by _RidG_ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's been said before, but before we talk about computers becoming superior to the human mind, how about creating an AI that's *equal* to the human mind?

    In other words, there's no point in talking about the future where computers rule supreme etc. if we still have no way for a computer to recognize, say, a table from a picture of a table if it does not comply with a series of previously-specified standards. I know it's a horrible analogy but jeez, it's 3:18 AM.

    ...Which reminds me. Why am I still up? *sighs* Damn you, caffeine.

    --


    "The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it." - G.B. Shaw
  4. Re:chess != AI by zutroy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    In a situation where there aren't predefined rules, how does a human react?

    We judge what the situation most resembles from our experience, and we react accordingly. We act like a case-based learning AI program. We use heuristics to weight our decisions...we just call our heuristics "common sense."

    Computers act more like humans, and humans act more like computers, than many people are comfortable to admit. Computers just don't have the mechanisms to experience as wide a variety of stimuli as us.

    Take a look at the work of Douglas Hofsteader (sp?). His book, "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies," shows relatively simple programs demonstrating surprisingly human-like behaviors.

  5. Re:Interesting, but... by DavidpFitz · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Sure -- rational people understand that a person's has a hierarchical structure where a complex concept depend on a number of simple concepts. Without the lower, more simple concepts, the higher concepts have no meaning since they can't be understood.

    So, knowledge is hierarchial only insofar that simple addition and subtraction pave the way for more complex algebra... knowing algebra without knowing addition and subtraction would give algebra no meaning.

    However, this doesn't account for leaps of thought where entire planes of thinking are bypassed... and nor does it account for mad people (always a tricky one in AI) , especially mad geniuses!

  6. To test a powerful computer, play an ancient game by igomaniac · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The game of Go has proven to be incredibly hard to program, and is a much better indication of where artificial intelligence is today than the game of Chess.

    This article gives an introduction to the problems involved in getting computers to play Go:

    http://www.ishipress.com/times-go.htm

    --

    The interactive way to Go -- http://www.playgo.to/iwtg/en/
  7. Re:Ho-hum by po8 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nobody got outraged when that new-fangled mechanical auto-mobile contraption started to outpace the world's fastest human runners.

    Allow me to recommend to you the legend of John Henry. About the time period you mention, too. I always mention this story in the Intro AI class I teach.

  8. Bollocks by schnitzi · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I was fairly engaged with this article (despite a little too much anthropomorphising of the results of deep computations) until the ridiculous conclusions at the end!

    Yeah, every chess program has a huge openings library to consult with, while a man has none.

    Baloney. A man is allowed to memorize as many openings as he wants, just as the computer has "memorized" them.

    Having found no other way to make the program good at endgame, program developers started feeding them databases of common endgames.

    Again, so? Humans are allowed to memorize as much endgame stuff as they want. Why should computers be disallowed this?

    The above-described matches were played between a man and a multi-processor machine. The processors were prompting to each other and exchanging ideas. This doesn't seem fair.

    Awwww... Why the hell not? Human brains aren't single processor; why should computer opponents have to be?

    Chess programs have a lot of memory at hand. It's like they have a million of chessboards to make moves on. And the human has none.

    The same fallacy, repeated over and over again. The human doesn't have none, he has as many as he cares to remember.

    If I were Kasparov or Kramnik, I would come to the match against the computer with my own board and played all variants on it. The PC can't see, you know.

    And if I were on the computer team, I'd let you. Knock yourself out! Go ahead and fiddle with your chessboard when you could be considering countless more positions in your head.

    All the games the computer won in the above-described matches were won due to blunders of the human opponents. They blundered everything: a piece, a checkmate, a draw, an opening. The cheater can't win without that.

    So, the humans are cheaters then, because they capitalized on computer blunders?

    --



    I object to that article, and to the next reply.
  9. Technical Blunder vs. Strategic Mistake by neibwe · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Lev Dymchenko's claim that Deep Blue match 2 round 6's outcome was an "evident blunder of the tired Kasparov" is suspect. Rather than a technical blunder, it was a strategic one, one of taking --unfortunately-- faulty advice. "According to Kasparov, "[his] biggest mistake was following the advice of computer advisers who recommended [he] play this way".(Links to an earlier post of mine containing many links to a dozen or so cited sources)

    Kasparov takes the NYT log postings into account in his recent post. He cites Elo (chess rating) numbers by Ken Thompson (an old school computer chess guy) derived by extrapolating numbers generated by setting a computer program against itself with differing search depths, "world championship"[1] level performance would require 1 billion nodes (moves) per second. Interestingly, "one billion nodes/sec on a single chip" is possible with todays 0.13 micron process, while "a trillion nodes/sec machine is actually possible today" according to one of Feng-Hsiung Hsu (Deep Blue hardware designer).[2]

    _____________
    [1]Kasparov notes also that the chess performance ranking numbers that Ken Thompson derived were asymptotic(?); "which flattens at the top end" . From Garry Kasparov on Chess Computers (22.01.2003) [ONLINE][http://www.worldchessrating.com/521629870 .html?804278037510812]
    [2](Note: The "one of Deep Blue's two programmers." citation is incorrect... the followup post clarifies the error.)