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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."

48 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. Chessmaster 8000 always beats me as is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    at least Chessmaster can't post on ./ how it beat me 5 times in a row.

    1. Re:Chessmaster 8000 always beats me as is... by Chessmaster+8000 · · Score: 5, Funny

      at least Chessmaster can't post on ./ how it beat me 5 times in a row.

      Can't I?

      I look forward to beating you five more times tomorrow night.

    2. Re:Chessmaster 8000 always beats me as is... by QQ2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Allright this is the last straw
      I've been beaten by this thing all through my life and I always took comfort that there was atleast one thing that I could achieve before the Chessmaster

      getting a +5 funny at slashdot

      Nooooooooooo damn you, now my failure is complete
      /me runs out to grab large sword and commit harikiri

  2. Interesting, but... by TopShelf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't know if chess playing really qualifies as AI. The game gets broken down numerically such that the computer's job is just to crunch through the myriad possible moves and select the best one. All the intelligence goes into the algorithm that rates various positions, and the calculation scheme by which possibilities are evaluated, which are the human inputs. It just sounds like too narrowly focused a task to be considered AI.

    --
    Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
    1. 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.

    2. Re:Interesting, but... by beders · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The best chess players look for patterns, but through experience and insight can discard millions of possible moves and concentrate on the most effective and bring about a squence that forces their oppenent in a direction they don't want to go. Saying that I have no idea how to get a computer to do the same :)

      --
      Brocklesby Park Cricket Club
    3. Re:Interesting, but... by ergonal · · Score: 5, Funny

      Good chess players just create_suspense(x) before making a move, where x is the amount of suspense, and generally increases as the game develops. When this function finishes they make a random move based on the "ooh" and "aah"'s they receive when they touch different pieces. If there's no crowd they use the expression on their opponents face in place of this decision-making process. It's a lot like winning the lottery. These chess players aren't really THAT smart.

    4. 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!

    5. Re:Interesting, but... by Afrosheen · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Mad geniuses, IMHO, are just like the 'AI computers' that play chess. They tend to be very deficient at everyday tasks (hygiene, social skills, excercise, etc.) yet extremely proficient at a specific task. Once you strip away everything that makes you human, you can focus on one thing and become superhuman.

      There are, of course, anomalies; people that are genii but continue to lead somewhat normal lives, but these people are rare. True genius comes at a cost, and that cost is high for most.

    6. Re:Interesting, but... by DavidpFitz · · Score: 2, Interesting
      If knowledge were hierarchical, one would be able to present said hierarchy. Since you can't, it's not.

      You are indeed correct, I can't :-)
      I would argue that there is a hierarchical base for knowledge, it just breaks off the further up the tree you get. Incremental learning must take place before independant thought can take place, so in that sense there is certainly a degree of hierarchy, I think.
    7. Re:Interesting, but... by manonthespoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      AI != Thinking like a human being, imitating a human being, etc.

      AI has many branches, several of which are applied AI and have to do with having a computer do some complicated task. Whether or not the computer is thinking should be seperated from whether or not we're talking about AI.

      If this article is about how computers may be becoming more intelligent then human beings, then they weren't paying attention when Deep Blue first beat Kasparov. No one at IBM ever said: "Behold, the first intelligent computer! It can think for itself!"

      However, they did very clearly say that chess is sufficently well understood that a fairly basic AI algorithm and heuristics (and a lot of specialized "Chess Processors" could essentially turn the game into a huge search problem.

      I think that people should not mix terminology here. If they are talking about computers having human intelligence, then that is what you should talk about, not AI. Because AI includes all of the things like playing chess, and emulating human intelligence, and learning algorithms, and...

    8. Re:Interesting, but... by fd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think we are agreeing. :-) Searching itself is not AI in it's own right. But there seems to be a hangup that people think all a chess engine does is search. In fact that's only half of the equation. A chess engine also EVALUATEs every position it reaches. And because those positions are not at the end of the game it has to make a quantitative and qualitative evaluation (e.g. I have more pawns but two of those pawns aren't as "good" because of X). Chess positions are more than the sum of their parts. The player with the most pieces isn't always in a better position. That second part, the evaluation, is where I think AI research could benefit chess engines.

      Humans are much better than computers at evaluating static positions on the board. Imagine a player with the brute force searching capability of a computer combined with the chess knowledge and intelligence of a grandmaster evaluating each position.

  3. chess != AI by tigress · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The game of Chess is not a measure of intelligence. It's a measure of mathematics and memory. A computer is no smarter if it's able to play chess than one that isn't.

    The reason for this is that Chess is a game where the rules are strictly defined. For each move, there can only be a limited - and known - number of outcomes. This reduces the entire game to a matter of mathematics and statistics.

    No, the real test of intelligence would be for a computer to react to and handle a situation where the rules are NOT predefined - such as a real world scenario.

    When a computer is able to take a limited number of inputs and make a judgement based on the (possibly) inaccurate and (definitely) insufficient data available, you can start talking about intelligence. Still, even then you're not talking about true intelligence. AND, for that matter, such programs do exist - they're called expert systems.

    No, what I'm prepared to call intelligence is a program that not only is able to make a judgement based on possibly bad data, but is also prepared to admit that it made a mistake and learn from those mistakes. That would, in my opinion, be a truly intelligent program.

    After all, assuming it's able to do that, it'd certainly be a lot more intelligent than a lot of humans I know. =)

    1. 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.

    2. Re:chess != AI by MnO-Raphael · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The game of Chess is not a measure of intelligence. It's a measure of mathematics and memory

      True, but as Turing pointed out: if you can't tell the difference in a certain context, does it really matter if it's *really* intelligent or not?
      AI is a misplaced term - "adaptive systems" would fit much better. I too have a problem with calling something that doesn't even know it's playing chess for intelligent.

    3. Re:chess != AI by zutroy · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Not to be disagreeable here, but I think that you're looking at this from too high of a level.

      What does "learning from mistakes" imply? Well, what is a mistake? It's when our plan of action failed to achieve its goal. A computer can easily simulate this, given a goal (that doesn't even have to be very well-defined).

      Say I want to drive to work. I have a choice of roads to go down. At first, they all seem equal to me, but eventually I learn which ones are heavily trafficked and which ones run smoothly. I then bias my trips towards the roads with less traffic. I have learned from both my mistakes and my successes.

      Comprably, a computer is in state A, and wants to get to state B. The computer tries all its available methods to get from state A to state B, and weights them according to the (utility per resources) that they provide. In the future, it uses this information to choose the best path.

      It's the same process, effectively. AI Planning is all about this stuff, especially Reinforcement Learning and Iterative Repair.

    4. Re:chess != AI by Jugalator · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The game of Chess is not a measure of intelligence. It's a measure of mathematics and memory.

      But will intelligence for a computer EVER be anything else than mathemetics and memory?

      Will our brain EVER work in another fashion than sending chemical signals to our synapses?

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  4. 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.

  5. 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
  6. The problem with your argument. by nigel.selke · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Every time technology advances, the definition of what tasks can be said to require "true intelligence" changes. For example, before the advent of calculating machines, arithmetic was considered something that was uniquely human. Now, people dismiss computers' abilities to do lightning fast arithmetic, and, in fact, use it as a basis for putting down other abilities of computers/other high technology ("But that all comes down to number crunching. It's not true intelligence.").

    Of course, you (and they) could be right about it. But it's interesting to note that chess is another prime example of this. Computers became extremely good at number crunching and large-scale analysis, and people shrugged it off. "A computer would never be able to compete with competent chess player, and could certainly never compete with a Grandmaster. Chess requires true human intelligence." 20 years later, a computer tied with the reigning Chess Champion. Now - Chess doesn't really require true intelligence, it all boils down to number crunching.

    The problem is, where do we draw the line? As computers start adding more and more to their lists of abilities, especially in areas such as pattern recognition and expert systems, are we going to claim that those things don't require intelligence, and can also all be brought down to number crunching? To me, it seems like a form of denial. Instead of clinging to the old ways, why not recognize that computers might just be better at a lot of things that we previously thought were "human-only" areas of skill, and adapt accordingly.

    --

    We hang the petty thieves, but appoint the great ones to public office. - Aesop

    1. Re:The problem with your argument. by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You make a good point -- in the end, regardless how advanced the AI is, it might all boil down to number crunching, just like it all boils down to chemical reactions in a brain.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    2. Re:The problem with your argument. by bazmonkey · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The problem is, where do we draw the line?

      1) Make a computer with true free will. Let's see AI do something it wasn't originally designed to do because it wants to.

      2) "True intelligence", at least on par with us, will happen when a computer does everything we do mentally, while having full articulate motor skills, and then takes it upon itself to create an AI that crunches numbers better than it does, beats itself at chess, etc.

      The full-circle of AI doing everything we do will be "true intelligence".

    3. Re:The problem with your argument. by zmotula · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But chess *really* does not need any intelligence if you have enough computing power. You can be either (a) intelligent with low computing skills --- human or (b) dumb, but with excellent computing skills --- computer.

      Only our insufficient computing power makes chess the nice game that requires intelligence.

      Computers don't enjoy playing chess, it's a routine <g>

    4. Re:The problem with your argument. by Kynde · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1) Make a computer with true free will. Let's see AI do something it wasn't originally designed to do because it wants to.

      How would you measure that? Especially if you knew that in the it boiled down to number crunching with some entropy input. You do remember that the concept of free will is meaningful only subjectively, i.e. from one's own point of view.
      Although it is widely held that among human kind if one has it then all do, but that does not apply to AI.


      2) "True intelligence", at least on par with us, will happen when a computer does everything we do mentally, while having full articulate motor skills, and then takes it upon itself to create an AI that crunches numbers better than it does, beats itself at chess, etc.

      Bollocks, the earlier poster said it well. We're just drawing the line further and further, mostly because what we're after is that "well, err, when they're like us" while all along we're not quite sure what that means.

      Moreover, the planes is infested with actual human beings that would fail on either of those.

      Besides both of your points there are unscientific, neither of which can be measured in any way. That's all there really is to it though. Milestones. Wether a person qualifies that as AI is subjective to the definition of AI, for which here in /. I'm guessing are a myriad of different interpretations.

      There are a number of good well defined tests that we can put the AI through, every one of those passed is significant. Especially the forementioned arithmetics and chess should NOT be forgotten, because they indeed were once held high.

      --
      1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
    5. Re:The problem with your argument. by platypus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To add another example. Richard Feynman writes in one of his books about how he listened to a conversation between to students of mathematics(at MIT or so) where one tried to explain some mathematical concept to the other.
      Feynman described that after a long while and much intense explaining, finally the other student "got it", and said something along the lines of "Oh! YES, THAT'S TRIVIAL!"
      Feynman goes on to make fun of mathematicians by proposing that mathematicians only understand trivial problems, because anything they have already understood is declared trivial by them.

      This is a bit extreme, but it decribes exactly the notion some AI critics seem to have when judging AI advances.

    6. Re:The problem with your argument. by slimak · · Score: 5, Funny

      Haven't you been watching any scifi movies in the past couple of decades? As I have, I can tell you that this is a very bad idea. Once the computers can do things we don't indend, the will either

      1) attempt to destroy us
      2) enslave us
      3) sell us on ebay

      we have seen time and time again that AI is pure evil and no good can come of it.

    7. Re:The problem with your argument. by Dahlgil · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What you have here is really the crux of the definition problem. AI will not be considered AI until a machine is able perform an act of mental dexterity for which we do not have an explanation (not very likely). You see, as soon as we have a perfect understanding of how a mental process was carried out, we no longer consider that process to be an act of intelligence but simply a mechanical routine. The changes we have witnessed in the definition of intelligence really point out what the very definition of intelligence is. "True" intelligence makes "sense" to us, but is never perfectly understood. When we, as humans, make a decision or reach a conclusion, there is always some element of mystery about it. We don't know, for example, exactly how the thoughts leading to the "act of intelligence" are represented in the brain, or exactly what neurons fired, or what sensory or memorized inputs contributed to it. We just "feel" and "sense" an intelligent rationality about it. On the other hand, if we *did* know all of the physical mechanics about how the "thought" was carried out, we could readily model it in a computer, and step through the entire process of the thought in a debugger. But would we still regard the thought as an act of intelligence any more, or as just a routine? Isn't this exactly what has happened in the case of chess computers? I do not think that there will ever be machines that will be regarded by humans who live contemporarily with such machines as "intelligent", for precisely the reason of definition. Yes, we will develop machines that manipulate and process information better and better, and in ways that more accurately reflect the kinds of decision making humans perform. But as long as it is possible to go back to the machine and retrace the exact algorithim, storage mechanics, and logic flow that are being followed in the machine, it is unlikely that people will ever accept that as real intelligence.

    8. Re:The problem with your argument. by kisrael · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, swap "electrochemical" for "chemical" and I think it may well cover the neural paths you're talking about. And yeah, those neural paths have to be established, but there's nothing mystical about it, it's just very diffucult to understand.

      --
      SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
    9. Re:The problem with your argument. by platypus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      OTOH, there's an interesting short story in one of Hofstaedter's (spelling right? to lazy to look up) books where one guy build mechanical "bugs" which could express very simple "emotions" - i.e. making some pet like noises, making noises of fear, crawinling around etc. - and he asks a visitor to smash one bug with a hammer. The story describes how this man wasn't emotionally able to do that, because he developed feelings for this bug.
      (IIRC the real story is somewhat more involved, but you get the idea).

      I bet if you decorated an "intelligent" AI with some emotional dressing, you could significantly lower the barrier to accept it as "intelligent".

      Shows how deeply involved the human perception of not only intelligence, but life in general is.

    10. Re:The problem with your argument. by B3ryllium · · Score: 2, Funny

      Man wasn't originally designed to post to slashdot ... though only because slashdot did not exist at the time, and needed to be created by man first.

      And was man created to create Slashdot? While CmdrTaco and CowgirlNeal might think so, I somehow doubt it. :)

    11. Re:The problem with your argument. by B3ryllium · · Score: 2, Funny

      What has always baffled me (instead of the engine being unable to move itself) is rocket propulsion in space ... :)

    12. Re:The problem with your argument. by Servants · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "A computer would never be able to compete with competent chess player, and could certainly never compete with a Grandmaster. Chess requires true human intelligence."

      Douglas Hofstadter put forth basically this point of view in his Pulitzer winner "Godel, Escher, Bach" in 1979. He predicted that computers wouldn't be able to beat grandmasters until they'd achieved human-level intelligence in general.

  7. Human V AI... by bazmonkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...if it would be correct to say that artificial intelligence is superior to human mind. Seeing as how it was our mind that created AI, somehow I just don't think so.

    You show me AI that takes it upon itself to create it's own AI that outperforms itself, then I'll concede. That's the mark of intelligence: having the capacity to create something more capable than yourself, and not only make it, but think it up.

  8. Raising the AI bar higher and higher by Saeger · · Score: 2, Funny
    Yes, but, can any AI write a human-biased article for a newspaper about the chessmatch it just observed? I don't think so! And if it can, it's a witch, and should be burned aliv^H^H^H^H^H.

    --

    --
    Power to the Peaceful
  9. I really wish I could believe stuff like this- by Ieshan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hate it when people compare AI and human chess players and say the following three things:

    a) The computer cheats because it can evaluate more moves
    b) The computer cheats because it has "traps" and "100% win situations" programmed in
    c) The computer cheats because it has access to previous human games and can "guess" a player's strategy

    This might be true, but most grandmaster chess players have played thousands upon thousands of hours of chess. They can immediately rule out half the moves on the board as "stupid" or "unhelpful", and they themselves come with the special knowledge of having seen many, many board situations and having worked out their solutions.

    Chess is an interesting game because it is on the scale of infiniately complex.

    Computers also have a serious disadvantage: the players they play against are not computers, and therefore do not evaluate moves with the same algorithms. For instance, when Deep X makes his check he says, "I'm going to do this... and then... Kasparov might do that... and I might do this... and Kasparov might do that..." - all the while substituting in what he believes are probable moves for Kasparov based on his own algorithm. This may be disadvantageous because Kasparov may analyze a situation from a different perspective - and while this is a factor in EVERY chess game (human vs. computer or human vs. human) - it is important to note that the computer does not have the priviledge of analyzing the situation from these distinctly human perspectives.

  10. Expert System, not AI by MickyJ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Chess playing software is an example of an expert system, not a true AI system.

  11. 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/
  12. Ho-hum by Malfourmed · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Nobody got outraged when that new-fangled mechanical auto-mobile contraption started to outpace the world's fastest human runners. Yet a computer beating a grandmaster in chess was an apocalpytic event. As others have pointed out chess can be won by using a fairly unsophisticated brute force mathematical approach at which computers excel. It's really no big deal.

    I'm much more intrigued by developments in artificial creativity - poems, musical compositions, jokes, stories; where the rules governing the construction of these works are much more elusive. When a computer-generated novel wins the Booker Prize we'll have passed a signficant threshold.

    Or to come back to the chess comparison - if a computer programme which adopted a human approach to chess playing, eg calculating no more than three or four moves ahead rather than nine or ten, evaluating a dozen potential decision branches rather than thousands, beat a human grand master - that would be a more significant advance in AI.

    It would be like building a human-shaped robot which was able to out-run (not just outpace) a person, rather building a mechanical device which gets there by adopting an entirely different paradigm: wheels, not legs; brute force chess move evaluation, not (largely) intuitive leaps.

    --
    a world in progress...
    1. 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.

  13. Just think... by zutroy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just think of the world's first conscious, intelligent computer claiming that we can't possibly be conscious because we're merely the products of neurons firing.

  14. 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.
  15. Re:computer can't handle non-computable problems by cyco_penguin · · Score: 5, Informative

    Godel's theorem says nothing about the ability to understand Godel's theorem. It simply states that in any formal system (FS) sufficiently powerful to support Peano Arithmetic, there are theorems about FS which can be expressed in FS, but cannot be shown to be true or false (are undecidable) within the rules of FS. I.e. unanswerable questions may be asked of any sufficiently interesting system.

    Quite what bearing this has on the ability to "understand" such a system is beyond me. Prove God exists. Prove God does not exist. Can't do either? Oh well, you're obviously not intelligent then.

  16. So what is considered AI? by Bombula · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It's one thing to know what something isn't; it's quite another to know what it is. I think it's clear that running a search and performing arithmetic are functions to simple to have emergent properties resembling intelligence. So then what properties would have to emerge? What are the properties of intelligence?

    In my admittedly ignorant view, intelligence largely boils down to three closely related things:

    1. Noise filtration.

    Humans and animals - even simple ones - can prioritize what sensory input to process. This is how we pick objects out of the background visually, sonically, and - in humans - abstractly from conceptual landscapes.

    2. Pattern recognition.

    Correctly identifying patterns within chaotic data streams are where biological computers (brains) excel, thanks probably to massively parallel processing and phenomenally well designed algorithms courtesy of natural selection. Listening to one person's voice in a crowd requires both (a) ignoring all other sound, and (b)correctly identifying and processing the relevant data coming in, including information about context. Current Voice Recognition technology, for example, is poor despite massive number crunching because algorithms for noise filtering and pattern recognition are crude. Note also that pattern recognition is 4-dimensional: we recognize things in motion, not just standing still (read "behavior").

    3. Information inference.

    Current software doens't allow computers to handle a lack of data very well. If information is missing, brains fill in the gaps and make inferences efficiently and effectively. Sometimes this goes wrong, as when you mistakenly think you see something out of the corner of your eye. But mostly we get this right, hence the brain's accurate and effortless construction of motion from still frames flashed 24 times per second on a movie screen.

    A simple test of these qualifiers is anticipation. When software can filter noise, recognize patterns, and infer information well enough to demonstrate the faculty of anticipation, then we will be making steps towards genuine AI.

    --
    A-Bomb
  17. Re:Playing chess is not AI by suchire · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I'm sorry, but I fail to see what you would call AI, then. Where do you distinguish between AI and not AI? At what point does a computer, processing information at an extraordinarily high rate, "become" intelligent?

    Consider Searle's Chinese Room problem. You feed someone (written) Chinese under the door, and they have an extremely complete book of rules for "translating" one set of Chinese characters into another. The person then feeds a written "reply" in Chinese back under the door. Do the people in the room know Chinese? To the people outside, it appears that they do. What if the person memorizes all of the rules. Can that person now be considered to "know" Chinese?

    You can't just blanketly designated computer chess-playing as unintelligent, because we don't really have effective ways of designating whether something is "intelligent" or "human-like" other than gut-feeling or statistical analysis of "performance" (i.e. outward appearence). Turing had the right idea when he gave his version of the Test, in that the true test for intelligence is just the appearence of it.

    --
    Such irE
  18. 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.)

  19. The flaw of being perfect by csritchie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Chess programs have always been limited by the fact they try to find the most logical move; that leads to the most logical sequence for the current board position.

    They are hardly cheaters.

    True they capitalize on mistakes, but if you play Fritz, or Chessmaster on the most diffuclt setting, even a relative novice can make it to move 20. The computer will try to read your opening and play "book" against it.

    Whereas if you were to play Kasparov as a relative
    novice, I would wager the game would be over, or at the very least you would be in a position that could not be won, by move 15 or so.

    If a human sees you make a move that isn't the best possible move, they can switch their whole strategy to be more aggressive. Computers play the board not the person.

    So far programs treat Kasparov and a relative novice the same. Knowing no difference aside from how the game develops.

    A perfect thing can only make the perfect choice.
    Luckily we aren't limited by such trivialites ;)

    1. Re:The flaw of being perfect by TerryAtWork · · Score: 2, Informative

      I believe that there is a parameter called the 'contempt factor' that takes this into account.

      It is used to increase the computer's score and decrease the opponent's to make the computer take aggressive chances with a novice that it wouldn't with a pro.

      --
      It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
  20. Re:To test a powerful computer, play an ancient ga by mav[LAG] · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's the thing, eventually the computer will be able to go through every combination, and be the best Go player in the world.

    This is not true - Go has too much depth to be effectively searched beyond just a few moves. The first 14 moves of Go have more than 200^14 possibilities. Go games take many many more moves than that to complete.
    The second problem is that an effective searching algorithm is only the first step. The really hard part is trying to come up with an analysis function based on pattern matching. There are no weights for different pieces, some more important than others. Each stone is worth the same. It's the arrangement of stones which counts - something really hard to describe as a heuristic.

    Read the grandparent's linked article - it explains all this a lot better than I can...

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    --- Hot Shot City is particularly good.